Their Nightly Ritual
by bellamywinchester
Summary: He promised to leave so he stays away - only he misses her, so he calls. She's free and never has to see him again - but she misses him, so she answers. [A series of canon-compliant post-5x11 drabbles wherein Caroline tells Klaus all about the craziness of her daily life and I inject some Klaroline into the rest of Season 5.]
1. Chapter 1

The basic concept for this story is that I'm going to write a phone conversation between Klaus and Caroline for every episode of the season after 5x11 (unless two episodes form one day).

This is the evening of episode 12, the day after Klarosex (I'm assuming).

I don't watch The Originals but I try not to mention Klaus' life as much as possible so whether you want all that Hayley-baby stuff to take place in this universe or not is entirely up to you (in my mind none of that stuff even exists though).

Enjoy :)

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**Chapter 1: The Devil Inside**

_Their first call_

_They talk._

_Every night, though it hardly started well._

It was the night after he'd given her the best night of her life so she frowned when she saw his name on her Caller ID.

"Hello, love."

Caroline couldn't believe it was his voice. After his promise yesterday she'd thought that she would never hear it again.

But _he did promise_.

"Now don't be like that, sweetheart," Klaus said, though she'd said nothing. "I promised that you would never have to _look me in the eye_ again."

Yes, that had been the promise. But if he thought his husky accented voice with that inherent sexy smirking tone wasn't enough of a temptation to her than he was fooling himself.

"Wow, how clever, congratulations. I bet you feel really proud of yourself for figuring that one out," she bit out dryly.

She expected some snark in return but instead there was silence followed by a sigh.

"What I feel is that I miss you, Caroline."

Her heart froze for a moment but then she rubbed a finger over her brow, sighing.

She couldn't deal with this.

She'd already spent the day dealing with her actions, she couldn't deal with the man involved in them too.

Stefan had helped her feel slightly better about the situation; about the way Tyler had looked at her with all that betrayal in his eyes.

"Klaus I can't do this right now."

More silence and another sigh.

"I understand."

He sounded dejected. She hated that she somehow managed to reject him even when they weren't even in the same room together.

"I'll go."

"Klaus, wait," she said on instinct, then bit her lip hesitantly. "Are – are you ok?"

"I'm fine," he responded, sounding surprised by her question.

She frowned. "Then why did you call?"

"I…" he seemed to struggled for a few seconds then found his words. "I wondered about your day."

Caroline's frown deepened. "My _day_?"

"Yes, how was it?" he asked curiously.

Caroline could've laughed. He asked that so matter-of-factly, like this was a thing that they did.

_Almost like they were a couple._

Caroline shook her head, clearing her mind of that idea and shifted backward to sit against her headboard. She pulled her knees in under her chin and sighed.

"That's really the only reason you called?"

"You expect ulterior motives?"

She did. Maybe he wanted to charm her into re-thinking her decision.

But she didn't know why she thought that way because it _was _pretty normal for them – most of the time he'd seemed to be the only person in this town who cared about her.

_Your hopes, your dreams. Everything you want in life. _

Caroline sighed deeply again as Klaus simply waited for her reply.

He was always waiting for her.

She took a moment to be thankful for Elena and Bonnie being out of the dorm room right now before she answered.

"This is you we're talking about. There's always an ulterior motive."

Klaus laughed. "Well, since we've already established that my calling you is a bit of a cheat, shall we jot down my ulterior motive as being simply getting to hear your voice?"

Caroline leaned her head back as she bit back a smile.

He was so damn smooth and perfect.

She could still taste him on her tongue.

"So you really just want to know how my day was?"

"It's a start," he replied cryptically.

Caroline rolled her eyes. "Ok then. If you really want to know, my day has actually been pretty terrible."

She could practically see his worried frown.

"How's that, love?"

"Everyone hates me."

"Why?" he asked with even more surprise evident in his tone.

"You."

There was total silence on both ends of the line and Caroline considered just hanging up.

This call had gone from weird to beyond awkward.

"I'm not sure I understand," he admitted eventually.

Caroline pinched her eyes closed. She really didn't need to be having this conversation with him right now.

Then again, he was the only other person who could understand the intense desire and impulsiveness that had run through them yesterday.

"I told Elena about… us. And Tyler heard and then Stefan found out and it's all kind of one huge mess right now."

Klaus was silent again and she couldn't blame him. What could he say? What _was _there to say? He'd got what he'd wanted and moved on and now she was left with the consequences and – _ok maybe she was being a bit unfair._

They'd _both_ gotten what they'd wanted and he'd left because that's what she'd made him promise to do.

"Klaus, can I ask you something?" she finally broke the silence.

"Of course, love."

"Would you have left if I hadn't made you promise?"

She regretted it as soon as she said it. She didn't want to put him in a tough spot but at the same time she needed his answer.

She needed to know that he still intended on being her last.

Because it was a promise she clung to; it was how she'd been able to ask him to walk away and never come back.

She wasn't ready for him right now but one day she would be and when that day came she would go find him.

But she needed to know that he would want her too.

"I have a life in New Orleans now, Caroline," he responded somewhat diplomatically.

She got the feeling that he wanted to save face; wanted not to seem like some lovesick puppy she was in control of.

She pulled absently at her hair as she considered her next question.

She needed to hear him say it.

It would make the disaster that had been today worth it and tomorrow bearable.

And every day after that.

"Would you have left if I'd asked you to stay?"

She knew it was a dangerous question because the answer wouldn't help their situation, no matter what it was.

"New Orleans has nothing that could have drawn me back, sweetheart."

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Review and let me know if I should continue or not :)


	2. Chapter 2

Here it is, the second chapter! I really hope you guys like it, I was so happy that so many of you seemed interested in me continuing. I'm having a lot of fun writing these because I get to re-watch all Caroline's scenes in the episodes, but _also _I watch the relevant episode and then her moments in the next episode too which means that to me this story fits in perfectly with canon. And, I don't know, it just makes me really happy to think that off-screen Klaus and Caroline are having long chats.

Enjoy :)

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**Chapter 2: Total Eclipse of the Heart**

_Her confidant_

"If I'd known this was going to become a habit, I wouldn't have answered last night."

Klaus chuckled. "Bad day."

Caroline sighed. "I'm beginning to think there's nothing else my days can be."

"What happened?"

Caroline pulled her legs under herself as she leaned back in the armchair. Upon seeing Klaus' name pop up on her cell's screen she'd made her way out of the dorm as quietly as possible and down to the common room. She felt proud that she'd managed not to wake Bonnie or Elena but the added benefit was that she could be as candid with Klaus as she wanted without worrying about anyone overhearing.

Klaus' call had come at just past midnight (she wondered what had kept him busy all day but there was totally no way she was going to ask – that would imply that she maybe didn't completely hate these calls) so the common room was empty with the exception of one guy who sat on the opposite end of the room, his nose buried in a book.

"Enzo, Damon, Jeremy, Elena, Stefan – what _didn't_ happen?"

"Perhaps talking about it will help," he suggested and Caroline rolled her eyes.

His attempt at hiding how much he wanted to hear about her day was pretty pathetic.

"You know what I think would work better? A good night's sleep."

"Overrated," Klaus countered.

Caroline couldn't help a giggle from escaping. "Uh-huh? And how would you know; when last have you even gotten a good night's sleep?"

"Your birthday, one year ago."

She despised the gasp that escaped her lips at that but his answer had caught her off-guard. Why was it that he could still do that to her? And over a freaking cellphone.

But, most of all, she hated that she'd caused him so many sleepless nights.

She pulled at her oversized pajama top uncomfortably. Once again she had to repress the part of her brain that was screaming at her just to end the call because things were so awkward. But it was quickly beat up and gagged by every other part of her body that wanted this call to go on for as long as possible.

So she continued on in the only non-awkward way she could think of.

"Whitmore had a Bitter Ball."

"A Bitter Ball?" Klaus repeated adorably with his British accent.

"Yes," she confirmed.

"And what exactly does one do at a Bitter Ball?"

"Well… be bitter, for starters."

He chuckled again. "Ah."

"Me, Elena and Bonnie went. Well, Bonnie came afterwards."

She pinched her eyes closed, thinking of the nightmarish turn the night had taken. She couldn't help thinking that just maybe all of it could've been avoided if they'd all gone to the ball together – maybe Damon never would have had the opportunity to kidnap Jeremy.

"She came with Damon, because he'd kidnapped Jeremy."

"To what end?" Klaus asked curiously.

"Ugh, Damon's being such a jerk right now because Elena broke up with him so he's totally spiralling. Anyway, he wanted to find this professor so he could kill him and he needed a witch and… you know what, I'm getting upset all over again just _thinking_ about it."

She could practically hear his smirk.

"You mentioned Stefan?"

"Oh, right. So Stefan came to the Ball too because Elena invited him for some reason and then they started getting all cosy together on the dance floor when Elena was _supposed_ to be shredding pictures with me."

_Including the drawing you made for me._

She bit her lip, thinking back to the moment she'd made the decision to take that drawing along to the stupid party. Maybe it had been his call last night that had driven her into wanting to know that she still had some control over her own mind or maybe she'd just needed to get rid of the constant reminder of him – it made her wonder too much about how long it would be before she would get to see him again; before she would find him and run into his arms.

Either way, she'd gone and shredded it and now hearing his voice was making her realise what a completely moronic decision that had been.

_How could reminders of him possibly ever be a bad thing?_

"Is that jealousy I detect, love?"

"What? No!" She pulled a face. "Stefan's like a brother to me. I'm _annoyed _because I don't want Elena leading him on. He's still hurting and she only just broke up with Damon and I don't want them to make some terrible decision which will leave _me_ stuck in the middle of their awkwardness. Never mind what _Damon_ might do," she rambled.

"That is quite the situation," he admitted.

"I know! And it sucks because I _want _Stefan and Elena back together. I mean they're perfect for each other and if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: _he's_ her epic love, not Damon. But the timing is just so awkward and Elena's acting all weird so I don't think she's over Damon yet, or at least that's what I _think _it is – "

"Elena's acting _weird_?" he repeated.

"…Yeah. I can't even explain it, she's just… off."

"Well have you spoken to her about it all?"

Caroline leaned her head back, wondering when exactly Klaus had become the person she talked about all this stuff to – her confidant. Still, with all the crap that went on in her life on a daily basis, she figured she deserved one. And Klaus was perfect for the job, really. Besides the effect they had on her life, his interest didn't lay in any of her friends. He cared about her and only her.

"I… tried."

She groaned. Klaus had a point and he hadn't even freaking been there. She'd chickened out of telling Elena how she really felt which probably had something to do with the really intense-looking hug between her and Stefan that she'd walked in on earlier.

"I hate it when you're right."

He laughed. "Let's not start listing all the things we hate, sweetheart."

She exhaled heavily. "You know what, _let's_. It might be fun to vent."

When he didn't reply, she grinned. "I hate that I have two best friends who clearly are meant to be together but they've gone and complicated things instead of just staying together to begin with and now I'm the bad guy stuck in the middle."

Klaus laughed again and she would've glared at him if she could.

"Stop laughing! This is serious. Now say something you hate," she demanded.

"I hate that you've been having such bad days."

Caroline smiled. "Ok. I hate that… that guy sitting over there is studying so hard and making me feel guilty."

"I thought you said this was serious," Klaus smirked.

"It is! Other people being good students when I haven't even read all my textbooks cover to cover yet makes me so mad. Like, how dare they?"

"Incredibly inconsiderate of them," Klaus agreed mockingly. "I hate that too."

Caroline rolled her eyes but laughed. "Fine. I hate that Tyler hates me now," she finished with a sigh.

"I would recommend simply returning the hate but Tyler doesn't deserve it," he replied frankly.

She snorted. "Yeah, because being hated by me is such a privilege."

"_I _cherished the experience; they say hate is an indication of passion."

_Passion._

She still felt the warm pads of his fingers on her breasts right before he ripped her top to shreds.

"I hate that we didn't have longer in the woods," she suddenly found herself admitting.

She immediately put a surprised hand to her mouth, inaudibly gasping.

She _seriously_ needed to stop thinking about sex in the woods with Klaus because it made her zone off and then she ended up saying the craziest things.

He sucked in a breath but his reply came quickly, like he couldn't stop himself either.

"I hate that we spent the evening in the woods at all, Caroline. I much would have preferred taking you to my house and ravishing you in my bedroom."

Her eyes fluttered closed as his words poured into her ear and her imagination brought them to life.

God, she would have liked to go home with Klaus.

Eyeing the guy across the room one last time, she curled herself up, pulling her knees to her chin and pinching her eyes shut, allowing only Klaus' voice and their game to be part of her world.

"I hate that your sexy voice and accent makes all that sound way better."

There was nothing wrong with telling him that when they'd already had sex, right?

"It doesn't sound good already?" he asked almost worriedly.

She giggled. "Your turn."

"Hmmm. I hate that I don't know what you're wearing."

That made her laugh aloud involuntarily and she didn't even care that she was probably disturbing the guy's studying. Served him right.

"Pervert."

"Your turn," he repeated her words back to her.

"Ok… I hate that you ripped my shirt apart because I really happened to like that one."

"Is that so?" he asked, amusement plain in his tone.

"_Yes_," she asserted.

"You didn't seem to mind it at the time, sweetheart. Besides, _I_ hate that that's the only thing I ripped; it could have been quite entertaining to watch you make your way back to your friends looking as if you'd been mauled by a bear."

Caroline's mouth opened, her jaw going slack as laughter wracked her body.

Of course Klaus had taken her mood from bitter to rolling around in laughter on an armchair as some dude in the distance tried to study.

Moreover, she couldn't believe that she'd gone from being completely mortified and bereft about sleeping with Klaus to joking about it with the man himself.

"I _cannot_ believe you just said that."

"I can't believe I didn't think of it at the time."

Caroline huffed. "You know, I left all _your_ clothing in one piece."

"My broken necklace on the forest floor seems to think otherwise," he challenged.

"Ok that was _totally_ not my fault. What else was I supposed to hold on to when you were – "

"Now now, love, you don't want your studious company to hear all about our tryst, do you?" he asked and she could practically hear that damn smirk again.

Still, she shot the studying guy a glance and realised with horror that he actually was looking her way. He seemed to be zoning off but that didn't make her feel any more comfortable. She probably should be getting to bed anyway.

Caroline sighed and pinched her eyes closed as she thought about what she was about to say next. She probably shouldn't but she couldn't help telling him, especially now – somehow knowing that he would never be coming back here made it easier to talk to him honestly.

And if she couldn't even do that, then what was the point? What exactly had she gotten out of that whole promise besides endless daydreams of the moment she'd get to re-enact that day of insane pleasure with him?

"I hate that you're the only person who makes me happy anymore."

Yes, Stefan made her smile and Elena made her laugh and Bitter Balls lifted her spirits, but at the end of the day, literally, Klaus was the only person who made her feel good about her life and where it was going and, more importantly, herself.

Waiting for him to fill the silence, she revised the replies she expected from him. An offer for a ticket to New Orleans was definitely top of the list. Second would be… Skype?

"I detest that I'm not there with you, Caroline."

For a moment she forgot to breathe because _damnit _how did he keep doing this to her? Every time she thought she had him completely pegged, he would go and say something like that.

Because she'd been sure that his preference would be her joining him in his city with his brand new empire, but… knowing that he actually wanted to be here at _college_, of all places, with her left her breathless for just a second.

But there was more.

"I hate that too."


	3. Chapter 3

I'm so sorry this has taken a while; I've been so wrapped up in _Our Dark Soul _and the other stuff I'm working on and studying. But I hope you guys like it :)

Thank you for all the positive feedback (and ideas!), it really keeps me writing :)

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**Chapter 3: No Exit**

_He understands_

"It was terrible!" she exclaimed. "A disaster. Whatever's worse than a disaster."

Klaus chuckled in surprise at the way the blonde had answered the phone. "Pardon?"

"My day – my day was a disaster!"

"Ah," he nodded. "Worse than yesterday?"

"Yesterday was a sunny frolic in the park compared to today."

Caroline sighed and fell onto her bed, burying her face in a pillow.

"What's wrong, love?" Klaus asked, sounding worried.

Caroline pinched her eyes closed, thinking about everything that had happened today – where should she even start?

"It's been Katherine this whole time," she muttered eventually, her voice coming out muffled.

"Did you say Katherine? I was under the impression that Katerina joined the dearly departed the last time we saw each other."

Caroline turned her head and sighed into her phone. "It's been Katherine this whole time. In Elena's body."

There was silence as she imagined Klaus frowning.

"You've lost me, love."

"Katherine Traveller-magicked her way into Elena and now she's passengered in Elena's head," Caroline growled.

Revising her words, Caroline realised how little sense her explanation probably made.

She was about to elaborate when Klaus made a sound of recognition.

"Ah, the Travelers. Katerina's late father was one, I believe."

Caroline's jaw dropped. "Wait, you know about Travelers? And Katherine?"

Klaus smirked. "There isn't very much you don't learn about someone when you spend five hundred years hunting them down, sweetheart."

Caroline rolled her eyes. "Oh, right."

She'd forgotten about that for a second.

"Well do you know anything about them that might help?"

"I've never met one myself, something I regard as being quite fortuitous. Travellers are an inferior parasitic race in the light of which even humankind seems worthy."

Caroline sighed, waiting for him to get to the helpful part.

Klaus noted her annoyed silence with a small smile.

"Furthermore, I've only heard rumour that their transferred selves are to be eliminated by the means of a particular knife."

She considered his words, her eyes widening. "Right! The one Katherine used to stab Nadia's boyfriend!"

"Nadia?" Klaus enquired.

Caroline hesitated. "Um… new girl in town. Anyway, that means it was in Mystic Falls at some point. Here's hoping Katherine doesn't still have it."

She flipped herself over to stare up at the roof, silent as her mind whirred.

For some reason she'd felt the need to keep Nadia's parentage a secret from Klaus. Which was weird, considering that she hated Katherine's daughter for what she'd done to Matt and she was in no better spirit with the eldest Petrova right now.

Was she scared it would bring Klaus to town?

Was she scared that he'd be able to restrain himself despite having even more reason to come back?

"I get the feeling there's more on your mind," he noted evenly.

Caroline stuck her thumb in her mouth, biting her nail as she thought about the conversation she'd had with Stefan.

"I just… can't believe I didn't realise she's been Katherine this whole time. I mean she's my best friend. I'm _supposed_ to be her best friend!"

"Don't feel bad, love, doppelgangers are interchangeable; quite awful across the board."

If he were here Caroline would've glared at him.

"That's not funny."

Klaus chuckled and she let out another deep sigh, shutting her eyes.

"I'm a terrible friend. There has never been a friend as bad as me in all of history."

"I feel you may be overstating the situation somewhat," Klaus posited.

"She must have felt so smug lying in the bed right next to mine thinking about how she was fooling us all. And Elena's probably in there realising that none of us actually know her at all," Caroline growled out, balling her free hand into a fist.

Finally seeming to sober up, Klaus sighed. "You can't blame yourself, Caroline."

"Uh, is there anyone else _to _blame?"

"I could dredge up a few contestants," Klaus offered.

"Oh, I'd love to hear this."

"Well, Katerina for being her usual conniving self, of course. Me, for not killing her when I should have – "

"Granted," Caroline admitted laughingly.

"That lad, what was his name… ah, Trevor, for allowing her to escape. Elijah, for trusting Trevor – "

"Are we really going to go through five hundred years of people who let her live?" Caroline interrupted, giggling.

He was silent for a moment, relishing the sound that he had managed to elicit.

"No, I suppose not." He considered. "Let's skip to more recent events, shall we? Me for not having used her as the vampire in my ritual – "

"_Yeah_, instead of me or Jenna," she accused.

Klaus chuckled. "Grudges cause wrinkles, love."

Caroline rolled her eyes. "Just by the way, all I'm hearing is a whole lot of _your _fault."

"You're implying I should kill _more _people?" he confirmed jokingly. "I believe that's quite contrary to the issues currently standing between us, Caroline."

Her smile disappeared as she took in his words.

Then she sighed. "You know that's not why I wanted you to leave, Klaus."

"Really? Not even a factor?"

Had it been?

She couldn't be sure. On the one hand, yes, she didn't see herself going experiencing college by way of sharing an apartment with a serial killer as she wondered whom of her classmates he'd drained for the fun of it.

On the other…

_I have plans and a future and things that I want and none of those things involve you, ok, none of them!_

She'd spent hours, _hours_, analysing every single thing that had happened that day between the two of them, including her own words.

And the more she thought about it, the more she realised that she hadn't been completely honest with him. Not really surprising because duh, she was never completely honest with him, not before these phone calls, anyway. No, she always kept things away from him, hiding the attraction and the way he affected her.

Still, her discovery had been about something different. After all, that day she'd showed him _exactly _how much he attracted her. And as for his effect on her, well, that she'd left even less of to his imagination.

It was something else that kept nagging at her mind.

_I intend to be your last. However long it takes._

She needed to do the whole 'normal' thing, she really did. It was something she'd always wanted and giving it up like that… it wouldn't have been right to give up on her childhood dreams for a guy. At least she thought it wouldn't have. Everything about Klaus scrambled up her mind a little, but the thing was… the thing was that what really stood between them were those words.

It didn't make much sense when you thought about it and that's why she would never tell him it, but those words were what whispered her off to sleep some nights.

Because she wanted him to be her big, epic love. She wanted him to be her last.

She just wasn't sure she was ready for her last just yet. She wanted more time and more experience before she could allow the hybrid to transform her world and make her discover depths of feeling she was just beginning to scratch the surface of with him.

Struggling for a reply, she went for a joke instead.

"Well clearly leaving people alive comes back to bite you in the ass," she laughed.

Klaus chuckled too then he breathed as he revised the rest of his list of names.

"I'll just go ahead and blame everyone who allowed Katerina to slip off to her death peacefully instead of simply helping her along with a neck snap, including you I might add, sweetheart."

Caroline rolled her eyes again but smiled in spite of herself.

"Something I would have been more than happy to help her with had I not been rather pleasantly distracted that day," he said suggestively.

Caroline blushed through her giggles.

"Hmmm," Klaus pretended to think. "On second thought, I think you may be to blame here after all, love," he said with the most serious tone he could muster.

Caroline couldn't even bring herself to protest as she giggled uncontrollably.

Klaus reclined in his armchair, running a pensive thumb over his dark jeans as he revelled in the tinkle of her laughter. In a way these phone calls were the only things that kept him sane anymore; her voice his only refuge.

His house was dark and musty, everything Caroline wasn't.

It was empty, too, and he wondered where she was at the moment. In her dormitory, or had she not made the drive to the meaningless shared room the institution held for her?

Though it didn't matter, not really. Not when she wasn't here.

A minute later when Caroline had wiped away the tears that had gathered as she'd laughed, Klaus spoke again.

"Now that's something I much prefer hearing, love."

_I hate that you're the only person who makes me happy anymore._

Caroline was silent for a moment as she considered. He'd clearly gone through all that just to make her laugh after the day she'd had. She wished she could be there for him the same way he was for her and she was about to ask him how _his_ day had been when he took an audible breath.

"You're much too harsh on yourself, Caroline. Besides, I recall you pointing out to me just last night that Elena had been acting strangely."

Caroline frowned as she remembered telling him that – she'd completely forgotten about it. Then she shook her head.

"Thinking your best friend is acting strange is completely different from realising that she's been _possessed_ by her evil twin."

"Well, I think that the fact you noticed anything at all is commendable considering everything you've been through."

Caroline scoffed. "Damon going off the deep end sucks but it isn't exactly traumatising."

"That wasn't what I was referring to, love," he reminded her gently.

_Everyone hates me._

She opened her mouth to counter but he beat her to it.

"You've been on the defensive, desperately attempting to keep the peace with all your friends as they judged you, Caroline."

Caroline's eyes widened as she considered his words.

God, how did he manage to know exactly what was going on with her when he wasn't even here?

Arguing with him forgotten, Caroline let her eyes close, simply allowing him to continue comforting her.

"It should come as no surprise to anybody that you were willing to look past the cracks in Elena's character when everyone kept searching for the faults in yours."

Caroline opened her eyes, realising how right he was. Recently she'd been incredibly focused on the way she'd constantly perceived everyone to be silently judging her.

Fighting away the cloud of shame that all her friends had wanted to impose on her had been a battle in and of itself, never mind overanalysing everyone else's actions like she usually did.

Tyler's harsh attitude towards her today alone had momentarily made her want to crawl into a corner and just hate herself.

She wouldn't even tell Klaus about that, he'd just get mad.

"Thank you, Klaus," she said softly.

"There's no need for gratitude, Caroline," Klaus replied, sounding bewildered. "You're far better than any of them and I refuse to stand by idly listening to their attempts at suppressing your light."

_Especially when I'm not there to keep reminding you of it._

He didn't even have to say the words; it was all there in his tone, in the careful and revering way he addressed her.

And she knew she should try and point out that there was nothing wrong with her friends nor was she any better than them in any way, but at the moment she was out of evidence to prove the former and she doubted anything she could say would make him believe the latter.

Instead she worked on softening the huge smile he'd managed to elicit, in case someone walked in and wondered why she looked so freaking content.

"I should go, we're probably going to have an early-morning pow-wow about how to find Katherine."

Klaus smirked. "Yes, well, good luck on that one, sweetheart. It took me five hundred years."

Caroline snorted. "Yeah I wouldn't admit to that out loud if I were you." Then she raised a determined brow. "Besides, you didn't have _me _in those five hundred years, now did you?"

Klaus sounded amused. "No, I certainly didn't."

Humbled the slightest bit by his reply, she laughed.

"Anyway, like I said, it's going to be a team effort."

"Don't sell yourself short, Caroline. I'm fairly certain it will be your impressive intellect to do away with Katerina Petrova once and for all."

She rolled her eyes even though she felt secretly flattered. "Don't sound so happy about it." Then she sighed lightly. "Night, Klaus."

"Goodnight, love. Happy doppelganger hunting."

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Let me know what you thought, please and thank you :)


	4. Chapter 4

This one is slightly shorter than usual, I think, but there's also much less exposition than there has been in others. Also it's later at night.

Enjoy :)

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**Chapter 4: Gone Girl**

_The early hours_

"It's late," she pointed out, pulling her blanket up to her chin.

"Apologies, love. Long day," he said by way of explanation.

"Ok," she nodded.

She was practically whispering even though her mother slept like the dead.

"Wanna walk about it?"

Klaus settled on the edge of his bed, smiling at her tiny adorable offer.

But he shook his head as he switched on his cellphone's speakerphone function.

"That's alright, Caroline. I'd much rather hear about yours."

He pulled off his grimy top, withholding a sigh. The truth was that he doubted he could take any comfort away from speaking of the messes he was constantly tending to here in New Orleans. What he did take comfort in was her voice.

Caroline rolled her eyes but she couldn't deny being pleased about the way he kept taking such an interest in her life.

"Ok, but fair warning, I might actually fall asleep in the middle of a sentence."

She wasn't lying, she really was exhausted. She hadn't exactly had the easiest day but, moreover, after the brainstorming session with the Salvatores she'd come home and spent forever dawdling as she got ready for bed.

At midnight she'd frowned and started up a movie. When she'd found herself falling asleep on the couch she'd reluctantly pulled herself into bed. It had been now, ten minutes into her process of falling asleep, when he'd _finally_ called.

Not that she'd been waiting up or anything.

"That's quite alright; I'll text you in the morning with all the indecencies you revealed during your slumber," he retorted.

Caroline laughed and rolled her eyes again. "Yeah, because you'd totally spend the night listening to me sleep," she shot sarcastically.

There was silence for a second, during which she was very busy not noticing his lack of denial.

"Your day?" he prompted.

"Well… we killed Katherine. Got Elena back," she admitted.

"You don't sound particularly happy about it," Klaus noted. "Realised which doppelganger it is you truly prefer?"

She scoffed. "Yeah because Katherine's such a ball of sunshine."

He chuckled. "Then what's the matter, love?"

"I don't… really know. I guess I just feel a little sad."

She felt even more confused about her sense of pity after what Katherine had done to Elena. But the thing was that she just kept remembering how Katherine had outright refused that Caroline leave Whitmore; had offered to help with the Wes problem instead.

"Tyler said it's because I see the good in people," she offered.

"Did he, now?" Klaus asked rhetorically, seeming amused again.

She frowned. Though she didn't like Tyler's implication that it had been that quality of hers alone that had attracted her to Klaus, it had still been a pretty nice thing to say to someone, she thought.

"You don't agree?" she asked worriedly.

"Well to be fair I'd be hard-pressed to agree with anything Lockwood says. Principles and all," he said like it was an explanation.

"_Yeah_ because you're a man of such principles," she countered sarcastically.

"Your sweet-talking makes me all tingly, Caroline," he retorted in a low sultry voice.

She giggled, trying and failing to roll her eyes at how much of a flirt he was.

Oh well, he'd started it.

"Really? Is that the only thing I do that makes you all tingly?" she asked with a small smile, having personally found out precisely how his body reacted to hers.

He drew in a sharp breath before chuckling lowly. "Caroline, if only I'd known how provocative you are in the early hours of the morning," he said suggestively.

Caroline giggled and he continued.

"So you know, I'm not opposed to phone sex."

"Oh my god," Caroline exclaimed, putting a hand to her mouth in surprise.

Klaus laughed, relishing in her reaction.

"Is that a yes?" he asked with a smile.

"That's a 'You're a pervert!'" she replied through giggles.

"Not tonight, then?" Klaus confirmed, still smiling.

"You're incorrigible," she shot.

"Still not hearing a refusal, love. Besides, I've been told I have a sexy voice and accent," he repeated her words verbatim. "I feel I might be predisposed to excelling at this."

"Oh my god," she said again, blushing furiously.

Deciding to pull herself together despite the fact that she totally just wanted to crawl into a hole and blush for five hundred days, Caroline wiped her tears away.

That was when she realised that once again he'd managed to make her completely forget about her day and how sad she'd been. Damn, he was good.

"Are you going to tell me what you think about what Tyler said or not?" she pressed.

She was very well aware that she was avoiding his question and she could practically hear him smirking because of it before he spoke up again.

"I'm rather biased," he settled on.

If she hadn't known any better she would've thought he sounded… shy. But Klaus didn't get shy and, either way, he'd gotten her way too curious. She had to know what he thought.

"Uh yeah, and so is pretty much everything you say. Since when has it stopped you?"

Klaus hummed his amused agreement during which she wondered what it was exactly that he was so hesitant about telling her. Did he think she was a terrible person because she'd maybe liked Katherine just the _tiniest_ bit?

"I'll confess to Tyler not bring completely in the wrong, though he missed the real point by quite a large margin," Klaus began tentatively.

She heard shuffling, like he was settling into bed himself.

Caroline frowned. "And what's _your_ take on things?"

There was another moment of silence before he finally provided her with an answer.

"It isn't necessarily that you're able to recognise the good in people, Caroline. It's that you simply don't allow anyone the choice but to exhibit their goodness when they're in your presence." He paused, thinking of her smile. "Your light reveals the good in others even if they'd thought that side of themselves long since buried. What you see in others is, very simply, your own reflection."

Caroline's breath caught and she found herself wiping away tears for an entirely different reason than she had a few minutes ago.

God, how did he go from flirting with her and talking about phone sex to flattering her to the point of tears?

And flattering wasn't even the right word, was it, because that made it seem superficial. Every time Klaus said things like this it was less like he was trying to win her favour and more like he was just really sincerely interpreting her soul.

She bit on her thumb, not knowing how to reply.

Eventually she ended up settling on a joke; those always worked.

"I don't think I have enough brainpower for psychoanalysis right now," she teased.

"Well there are always far less philosophically inclined avenues of conversation to be explored, love," he said, again with that hinting tone.

She laughed, rolling her eyes some more. She was really beginning to think that Klaus saying she was provocative in the early hours of the morning had totally been him projecting his own personality onto her.

"Ok, I'm gonna say goodnight now, half because you're being a perve and half because I have an early morning."

_Of finding Elena an antidote._

_God, she'd so much rather stay on the phone with Klaus. _

"I'll call at a more reasonable hour tomorrow," he promised sincerely.

She found it nice that he felt genuinely bad about having called her so late.

And her stomach found it something else altogether that he'd called anyway despite the impolite hour. Could he still sleep without hearing her voice?

Could she without his?

And when the hell had that even become a thing, like seriously?

Caroline faked a scoff. "You're acting like this is some kind of tradition or something. Don't get ideas."

_I need to know I can still get on with my life normally without this._

_Without you._

Klaus seemed amused. "So the past few nights have just been coincidences?"

"Exactly. Four completely separate, unrelated, incidental shared phone calls."

Klaus started chuckling lowly and it quickly built up into a full-scale laugh. He didn't stop for a while and Caroline felt the weirdest sense of accomplishment.

She snuggled deeper into her pillow and pulled her blanket up even closer, intently listening to the throaty sound resulting from his weird sense of humour; the little unavoidably human quirk that could be easy to miss when his laughter began to subside.

"I truly miss you, Caroline. Sleep well."

* * *

I really really hope you guys are still liking it! At any given time I'm working on at least 4 different Klaroline stories and y'alls' reviews really motivate me to keep writing this and thinking up more conversations for these two to have, so please let me know!


	5. Chapter 5

So Enzo is in this chapter but I am a die-hard Klaroline shipper and so if you're also a Carenzo shipper you _may _not like this. I'm not sure. I did try and keep that relationship as close as possible to what it was like on the show though.

This chapter was supposed to be wayyyy shorter, like 'I'm gonna have to apologise for how short this is' short, but then ended up being longer than the others? Anyway, there's a bit at the beginning that doesn't have Klaus and so I think I just ended up compensating for that with more words, ha.

Enjoy :)

* * *

**Chapter 5: While You Were Sleeping**

_The receiving end_

"Comfy?" Enzo asked.

Caroline sighed heavily. "_Yes_."

"Aren't we snappy?" he laughed.

"Yeah, I am. Just… stop making chit-chat and focus on the road so we can get there faster."

Enzo snickered. "I'm fairly sure that's not how driving works."

She rolled her eyes then continued her steady gaze out through the windscreen. Quickly she shot her phone a glance, checking the time, then re-focused.

Noting how pointed the silence had become, Caroline turned to find Enzo smiling to himself secretively.

"_What_?"

He smirked. "I thought you wanted silence?"

"Not when you're over there smiling to yourself like you know something I don't."

Enzo chuckled. "You seem like the type who abhors long silences yet you insist on me not speaking. Combined with what Damon's told me, I can think of only one reason you wouldn't want to hear me talk…"

He raised a brow as he looked at her and Caroline glared.

"Eyes on the road."

He rolled his eyes but obediently turned back to stare out at the road before him.

"Maybe I just don't like your voice; did you think of that?"

She knew exactly what he was implying and the most annoying part was that was right. Enzo's accent did grate on her patience because it reminded her of someone else – someone blonder and slightly less annoying.

"Deny it all you like, Gorgeous, but seems to me you've got it bad."

"Right, because you've known me for all of five minutes now, right?"

Again he laughed. "You're feisty but that doesn't make you any less obvious."

"I'm not entertaining this any longer," she decided, folding her arms.

Again she stared ahead icily after having checked the time on her phone. It had gotten dark hours ago and she was beginning to get worried.

For a few minutes there was silence before Enzo came up with something else he apparently just had to say.

"How much like him am I, then?" he teased.

"He's taller," she shot.

That shut him up.

* * *

They passed a sign.

"We should stop for gas," she suggested.

Enzo frowned. "We're still good to make it there."

"Ok, well, _I_ want to stop."

"Need to stretch your legs?" he smirked.

She glared. "_No_. I need something to eat. And to use the bathroom."

Enzo hesitated before sighing heavily. "If I knew you were going to slow me down I wouldn't have brought you along."

Intensifying her glare, Caroline scoffed. "_First of all_, _I _brought _you _along. And secondly, _excuse me_ for having normal bodily functions."

Enzo rolled his eyes but took the turn-off that led to the gas station.

"I'll get the snacks and drain the attendant while you run to the loo; what would you like?"

Her head snapped toward him and he laughed.

"I'm kidding! I'll just take a few sips."

Caroline rolled her eyes as he pulled up to the gas station.

"I don't know, get crisps or chocolate or donuts or something," she shrugged.

"Not looking after our figure, then?"

Shooting him once last glare as she made sure to grab her purse, Caroline climbed out of the car. Bending down, she looked back in at him.

"And don't kill anybody."

* * *

Deciding to pee while she was here anyway, Caroline used the toilet then pulled herself up onto the bathroom counter after washing her hands.

She bit at her lip for a few seconds before giving in and dialling his number.

"This is a surprise," Klaus answered.

Caroline frowned at all the noise in the background; he was clearly in a public place.

"You're busy," she noted.

"Just at the bar, love," he replied lightly.

"Oh, ok, well I'll just go then – " she started.

"No need, Caroline," he interrupted, his voice coming through clearer; all the noise having disappeared.

She smiled, imagining him rushing out of the bar just to speak with her. She wondered who he'd been with; if they'd ask, when he returned, who it had been on the phone. She wondered what his reply would be; ridiculously found herself wishing for _My girlfriend. _

_God, he was getting into her head._

"So to what do I owe the pleasure of _receiving _a phone call from Caroline Forbes?"

She laughed and again her imagination wandered – was he standing outside in the cold right now so he could have this conversation with her?

"I just wanted to tell you not to call tonight."

There was a pause as he waited for more but when none was forthcoming, he smirked.

"You called to tell me not to call?" he asked dubiously.

Realising how dumb that sounded without context, Caroline laughed at herself.

"It's just, I'm in a car roadtripping with somebody so I wouldn't be able to answer and I didn't want to have to ignore your call or anything."

"Ah," he acknowledged. "_Somebody_?"

"Enzo," she supplied.

There was another pause as he considered.

"Enzo… you've mentioned him before," he noted evenly.

Realising she'd never actually explained who he was, Caroline rubbed her brow, trying to think up a way to explain Enzo.

"He's… a friend of Damon's, I guess. From a long time ago."

"And you're sharing a car with him, because…?"

She smirked at how nosy Klaus was being.

"Long story. Traveller stuff."

Caroline winced, thinking of what she had to do once her and Enzo found Tom.

"I didn't realise you were still having Traveller-related issues."

"More like doppelganger-Traveller issues. I'm helping Stefan," she clarified.

"And what does this Enzo have to do with it all?"

She was about to retort wittily but found that she actually had no idea why Enzo had volunteered to come along. At the time she'd just figured that he was bored with his non-Augustine life, especially considering how happy he'd been to deliver the cure to Damon and Elena, but his recent comment about her slowing _him _down was making her have second thoughts.

"I actually… have no idea," she finished lamely.

She expected a chuckle of some sort but there was only worried silence on the other end of the line.

"Who did you say he was?"

Caroline shrugged. "I don't know. He's an old vampire, a little crazy because _duh_, he's friends with Damon. British accent, dark hair…" she trailed off, unable to think of any more ways to describe the vampire.

It wasn't like she knew him or anything.

But Klaus remained silently, seemingly awaiting more.

"I can ask him for the link to his Match dot com profile, if you want."

Klaus laughed. "Not necessary, sweetheart. He just doesn't sound like a very savoury character."

She narrowed her eyes at what was technically the bathroom stalls but would be directed at Klaus if he were here. It wasn't like _he _was a particularly 'savoury character', after all.

"You sound a bit jealous," she teased lightly.

"Do I have reason to be?" he shot back.

That stumped her.

There was no right answer, was there? Saying yes would indicate something between her and Enzo which there definitely wasn't. Saying no would mean indirect permission for him to get jealous eventually when there _would_ be reason for it.

She was about to answer yes – better he get used to it now – when she thought about those hypothetical people he would be returning to after this call. How maybe she'd wanted him to say it had been his girlfriend on the phone so it would fend off any interested girls.

"No. Enzo and I are sharing a car, that's it."

Klaus didn't say anything and she looked down at her swinging legs.

"Anyway, like I said, I just wanted to make sure you didn't call while we were on the road. I should get back."

"Caroline, wait," he rushed to say.

She frowned. "What?"

"I believe you're supposed to tell me about your day."

Caroline rolled her eyes. "And I thought I was clear. I can't do this tonight, I have to go."

He was silent for a few seconds and she hated that she couldn't just hang up without getting confirmation from him.

"If you insist," he replied eventually.

Caroline wanted to curse. He sounded so freaking desolate and she really didn't want to be the one to make him feel that way. Especially when what she really wanted – what she always wanted these days, it seemed – was to stay on the phone with him.

"It's just… I don't really want to talk about my day. Like at all," she elaborated honestly.

"That bad?"

She hesitated then smiled at his sneakiness. "Answering that would constitute talking about it."

He chuckled. "Indeed."

She exhaled heavily. "So if there's something else you want to talk about…"

There was a quick moment of silence during which she could practically see the frown on his face deepen, before he replied.

"I thought you had to go?"

Caroline bit on the inside of her lip, shooting a guilty glance at the bathroom door.

It wasn't like Stefan's life would be in danger if it took them a few minutes longer to get to Tom. Her deal with Sloane had been that Stefan wouldn't get hurt anymore if she found and killed his doppelganger.

"I could spare a few minutes."

Klaus smiled, leaning back against the brick wall. He could hear the cheerful, mostly drunken, noise emanating from inside the bar but truth be told he'd much rather be out here. It didn't surprise him – Klaus doubted there would ever be a time when he could choose anything over Caroline.

Tonight was a rollercoaster though. First there had been concern and excitement at seeing her name appear on his cellphone screen. Then the amusement and peace that always accompanied a conversation with Caroline. But now there was something far more dangerous running through his veins: the acidity of jealousy and rage. It was a combination he had very rarely felt in his one thousand years but even so, never at this intensity unless it had to do with Caroline.

With Tyler it had been easier, somewhat. Klaus had been the intruder on that relationship, after all. His jealousy had been reluctant, misplaced because he seemingly had no right to it. But now Caroline was single and he hadn't prepared himself for any other men coming onto her.

And now he knew it was something he hadn't thought about not because he hadn't expected it, but because he hadn't been able to dedicate thought to the possibility. And now…

_Enzo._

He wanted to growl the name right before ripping the vampire's heart from his chest.

Caroline had said there was nothing between them, but she had hesitated and the significance of that brief moment of silence ate at him.

However, he had to remain somewhere in the realm of sanity for Caroline. Which meant addressing her calmly and restraining himself from asking her to pass on messages of broken limbs if this Enzo so much as laid a hand on her.

After all, the worst part was that in the end he had no claim to Caroline. No say in what she did or whom she fraternised with whatsoever.

Still.

She'd chosen speaking to him, even for _a few minutes_, over re-joining her roadtripping partner. That counted for something, right?

"Your constant declarations of me being a pervert almost came to realisation today," he settled on telling her.

He could think of nothing else in his day which had not been grim or tiring. It was why he had found himself at the bar.

Caroline barked out a laugh in surprise. "_What_?"

"A sixteen year old witch came on to me," he explained.

Caroline continued laughing. "You're kidding."

"She was very beautiful too," he added.

"Oh my god," Caroline continued giggling. "So who warned you in time about her being underage?"

He shook his head. "I found out later, after I'd turned her down."

Caroline frowned. "Why'd you turn her down? You said she was pretty."

_She wasn't you._

"I wasn't interested," he replied lightly.

Caroline nodded slowly, wondering if that meant what she thought it meant. And of course she only had some concept of what it could've meant because of what _she_ felt.

Despite all Enzo's flirting tactics and overt comments, she couldn't bring herself to be attracted to him or even think about him in any way that wasn't completely platonic.

The only way she could think of Enzo was as a bad copy of Klaus. And as much as she hated to admit it to herself, it was the same way she regarded pretty much every other guy now as just not-Klaus.

So as difficult as she found it to believe that Klaus was still pining after her all the way from New Orleans, spending his nights alone, it also made a weird sort of sense. Because she could still feel his lips and stubble pressed to her ribs; his heated kisses down the calf of her leg slung over his shoulder.

She opened her mouth to say something but suddenly there was a sharp rap at the door.

"Hey, Gorgeous, get a move on, will you? I thought we were on a schedule!"

She gritted her teeth. For a second there she'd actually forgotten that she had to leave this bathroom, which was strange because it wasn't exactly the most sanitary place in the world. Additionally she really wasn't appreciating how much Enzo was ordering her around, even if he did have a point.

"I'll be out in a minute," she growled. "Wait in the car."

"I've _been _waiting in the car," he complained. "With nothing very much to look at, by the way. I'm missing you and the road."

Her cheeks pinked as she realised Klaus had just heard all that.

"_God_, I said I'm coming, can you just give me a second?"

"I'd wait a very long time for you, Gorgeous. Just not sure your mate Stefan has the same luxury."

She heard him walk away and balled her free hand into a fist.

"I have to go, sorry."

"That's alright, love. Thank you for the call," he finished graciously.

It made her smile.

"Uh, yeah, sure. Um…"

Ok and maybe just a little flustered.

"So, I'm gonna go. Bye."

Klaus chuckled. "Goodbye, Caroline."

The call clicked off and Klaus focused on taking deep breaths to stop himself from crushing the phone between his fingers.

After overhearing what he just had, Klaus no longer wanted to rip Enzo's heart from his chest. No, what he wanted was to speed over there and deliver a fatal bite to this vampire who thought he could order Caroline around. He wanted to watch him suffer.

Or, better yet, Klaus wanted to transform into his wolf self and rip Enzo apart. Imagining the spewing blood and the feeling of bones and limbs between his teeth helped to calm him each time he remembered the vampire calling Caroline _Gorgeous._

Suddenly the bar's back door opened from beside Klaus and a vaguely familiar man leaned out.

"Hey Klaus, you coming back in?"

Klaus didn't spare him a glance.

"No. Tell Jake he's won the game, I'll pay in the morning."

With that he sped off, leaving the vampire to wonder what on earth would make Klaus Mikaelson give up on a poker game he was winning only to rush off like that.

Whatever it was, it had to be important.

* * *

Caroline was finishing a Snickers when her phone vibrated.

Hoping her mother had remembered that she wouldn't be home tonight, Caroline opened the message with a frown.

**What about texting?**

She almost laughed aloud when she saw Klaus' name.

"Important?" Enzo asked from beside her.

"Not to you," she shot back.

She was being moody with him because of how he'd rushed her. He was tentatively attempting to get her back to at least what her earlier mood had been but it wasn't going that well for him. To his credit he'd gotten her quite a few good things to eat but that didn't mean she was going to be giving him so much as a smile for a good few hours. Nobody ordered Caroline Forbes around.

Not to mention that he'd cut her phone call with Klaus short.

Enzo seemed to take the hint and stared ahead solidly as she secretively grinned down at her phone. She set it to silent then pondered her reply.

**_You don't give up, do you?_**

The response was rapid.

**Come on, love. You know me well enough to know the answer to that.**

Giggling to herself, Caroline typed quickly.

**_Unfortunately._**

**So we're texting then?**

**_NO. I need to keep my eyes on the road._**

**You don't trust Enzo with the simple task of operating a vehicle?**

That made Caroline laugh aloud and Enzo shot her a weird look. She cleared her throat and straightened her face then went back to concentrating on her phone.

**_I don't trust Enzo at all. But I guess I can make an exception._**

She tapped at the dashboard waiting for a reply and after a few minutes she sighed heavily.

Seriously? Had he really stopped replying right after she'd agreed?

"Boyfriend lost interest?" Enzo smirked at her annoyed reaction. "Don't worry, I'm still here for you."

"I don't have a boyfriend and what you're here to do is drive the car," she snapped.

Enzo laughed. "Ouch."

Rolling her eyes, she checked her phone again. There was a new message.

**What about me? Do you trust me?**

Caroline frowned at the text then hesitantly replied.

**_Can't say; I've never driven in a car with you before._**

**You know that's not what I meant.**

**_Do I?_**

**You forget that I know you well too, sweetheart.**

Caroline bit down on her lip to keep from grinning.

**_Do you?_**

**Well, for starters I know about that birthmark just below your spine.**

Caroline put a hand to her mouth as she stared at his text with wide eyes.

**_You sound like a stalker._**

**Not if I kissed my way over it.**

She remembered that.

Caroline's eyes fluttered closed as she thought of Klaus' fingers traversing her back then gently pulling her over so he could replace the touch with his lips. She'd lain peacefully on her forearms as he kissed his way down from the nape of her neck, the sun's last rays bathing them.

**_You're making me blush while I'm in the car with someone._**

**I'm making you blush?**

She could practically see the smirk that had accompanied him typing that.

**I quite like the sound of that.**

He did. He liked the thought of Enzo steering the car as from the outer corner of his eye he saw Caroline blush at someone who was not him. He liked thinking that it would cause the other vampire to back off; to discontinue doling out nicknames to someone who was already enamoured by another.

Klaus knew it wasn't true but he liked thinking it anyhow. He had to sleep, after all.

**What about some more, then?**

**_Quit being a jerk._**

**A jerk who makes you blush.**

**_Ugh._**

**Instant message sex?**

Caroline pretty much choked. After which she laughed so hard that she attempted making that sound like choking and coughing.

"You alright there, Gorgeous?" Enzo asked, casting her a worried glance.

She nodded vigorously as she tried to regain control of herself.

"Yeah I'm fine."

Enzo didn't look convinced but he diverted his attention to the road again anyhow.

Caroline grinned down at the message, wondering how on earth she was going to reply to that. Her resistance crumbled just a little more with each new suggestion from Klaus for digital sex.

Not to mention it being a miracle that she had any resistance to begin with because seriously, this was Klaus.

**_It's called sexting, old man._**

Klaus chuckled. He loved when she pointed out his age, especially since she never seemed bothered by it. It couldn't help but remind him of that first night, when she'd adorably asked him if he was a _bajillion_ years old.

**Well aware, love. I just wanted to get you to say it.**

Caroline scoffed in surprise. God, he was so sneaky!

**_Dirty old man._**

**Is that an insult or a compliment?**

**_It's what I like to call a fact._**

**Facts have no place in foreplay, Caroline.**

"Oh my god," Caroline muttered.

"You know," Enzo started. "I'm beginning to feel a bit ignored."

Her head snapped to her roadtripping companion.

"Yes, well, we're doing this to find Tom and kill him, not keep each other company," she countered.

"That's true, but would the latter really hurt?"

She stared at him for a few seconds, sighing. On the one hand nobody liked a long silent drive. On the other he'd been the one to volunteer to come along, so she didn't see why it was her duty to entertain him.

Deciding not to reply at all, she turned her attention back to her phone.

**_This is NOT foreplay._**

**Then it's still coming?**

Involuntarily Caroline broke out in giggles.

Enzo decided to say nothing.

**_This conversation's over. You're allowed texting privileges again when you stop thinking about sex._**

**You say that like it's possible to stop thinking about you, Caroline.**

The cheesiness of that would've made her roll her eyes but she knew exactly what he meant. It was almost impossible not to think about their time in the woods whenever she thought about him. And whenever she found herself zoning off. And whenever they spoke and whenever… ok basically she thought about it a lot.

She bit at her lip, trying to restrain herself from typing her next message.

But then the part of her that hated self-preservation thought _what the hell _and the next thing she knew the message had been sent. She pinched her eyes closed, wanting to stab herself for doing that.

He didn't reply for a minute and quickly Caroline typed another message.

**_We're gonna be there soon, I should have a nap._**

**Sleep well, love, and good luck with your task.**

Feeling slightly peeved that he hadn't replied to her previous message but mostly relieved, she shut off her phone and made herself comfy against the door.

"Wake me when we're almost there," she instructed Enzo.

"Yes, ma'am," he smiled.

She shouldn't have been able to sleep, not with what she knew she'd have to do soon, but she found herself drifting off quickly anyway.

Her last thought was how weird it was that Klaus somehow seemed to calm her, no matter what was going on in her life.

* * *

Klaus stared at Caroline's second-to-last text, wondering how he had managed to draw the words from her; if it was an act he could repeat.

He felt foolish. He had faltered with uncertainty at replying to her message and consequently missed his opportunity.

There was the option of responding now with something she could find when she woke but – and he was not proud of this – he still wasn't quite sure what to say in reply. Caroline Forbes was one of the few people in the world who could render the Original Hybrid speechless.

He set down his phone but didn't switch it off, using his vantage from atop his pillow to continue staring at her message. He couldn't look away if he tried and idly he found himself wondering what in the hell this woman had pulled on him; how he was so inescapably caught up in her.

The screen went black and he tapped it, making the screen glow again in the dark room. Not because he needed it – the image was already burned into his retinas – but because it was evidence that Caroline herself had once typed those words; that it wasn't just a figment of his scarred mind.

**_It's not one-sided._**

* * *

I usually start writing the next chapter for this at around 20 reviews so please keep them coming. I could also use the motivation because I've gotten to the episodes of Season 5 which are just kind of painful to re-watch:/

Ok hope you liked it, byyyyye :)


	6. Chapter 6

Thank you so much for all your lovely reviews, I was so overwhelmed in the best way! It prompted me to finally draw up a plan for this story so now I know precisely where I'm going with this after doing some thorough re-watching (ugh). I always knew where I was going to end up but I actually put it down in writing after all your amazing words. Speaking of which, can you believe there's only 5 more chapters after this one?

Again I messed with the format a bit, just so you guys don't get bored. Also it's back to its normal length.

Enjoy :)

* * *

**Chapter 6: Rescue Me**

_The dream_

"I'm not in the mood."

It was an easy opening into teasing, but Klaus frowned.

"You're upset."

Caroline rolled her eyes as she dropped down on an armchair. "Ten points to you."

"What's wrong, love?"

Caroline wondered if Elena and Bonnie were upstairs. Regardless, she doubted Elena would be tuned in to the common room. She supposed she should go up and tell them about everything that had happened today but right at this moment she couldn't think of anything she wanted to do less.

"Bad day," she replied succinctly.

"And you don't want to talk about it?" Klaus asked with a 'Let me guess' tone.

Caroline narrowed her eyes, staring into the fire. He was right – she _didn't_ want to talk about it. But she also didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

"Let's see – I watched someone I really liked get murdered right in front of me then I had a… weird dream, right before being woken by two dozen chanting Travellers drinking doppelganger blood after which they set themselves on fire." She almost gagged just remembering the disconcerting sight. "I _think_ that about covers it."

Klaus was silent for quite a few seconds as he absorbed her words.

"Are you certain that last bit wasn't part of your dream?" he asked, only half-joking.

Caroline smiled a little in spite of herself. "Very sure."

Looking down at her nails, she recalled what had really been the dream.

_Enzo's neck snaps even as his hands are raised to perform the action on Tom. His body drops and it's really no surprise who stands behind him but she draws in a breath anyway. _

_"Klaus," she breathes; blinks. "You're here."_

_He gives her that sexy trademark smirk, the one that _god _she has missed seeing. _

_"Run along, mate," Klaus says to Tom like he doesn't understand what he's still doing there._

_Tom looks bewildered but he's already seen Enzo's neck snapped once today and after only a second of hesitation he's running towards his car. She knows she should be following; making sure that he gets to the train station safely, but she's rooted to her spot. _

_It hasn't been that long._

_Still, her eyes skirt over every part of him, drinking Klaus in, mapping out his skin and recalling the taste she will find on every inch of it. Aftershave in his stubble; cologne in his neck. Just the purest bit of _him _on the inside of his wrist._

_She lingers on the corner of his mouth, where his lips are drawn up mischievously into that smirk. She loves kissing him there; loves the moan it elicits._

What are you doing here?

_She knows it's what she should say but she can't seem to manage parting her lips to speak any more. Besides, what he's doing here is extraordinarily clear – helping her, like always. He just helped her save Tom's life. _

_And more than that – well, more than that is obvious. It's obvious if he's looking at her anywhere close to the way she's watching him._

_A car screeches away and though she's expecting it, she turns to watch Tom's escape anyhow. When she looks back he's right in front of her._

_Of course he is._

_Everything is a rush; a literal blur as he speeds her away. She isn't sure where he's taking her nor where they settle but she knows that the clothing is coming off faster than they can run. _

_She opened her eyes. _

_She didn't remember much but she could still feel Klaus' feverish lips against that spot right below her ear; his stubble burning along her cheek._

_She could feel his arm around her though and she pretended to be asleep for a few seconds longer, relishing the feeling of being in his arms. They'd never gotten the opportunity to actually _sleep _together and she realised now that it was something she'd been curious to do with him. _

_Hearing voices, Caroline opened her eyes, beginning to turn so she could look at Klaus. His arm withdrew and from the corner of her eye she realised it wasn't Klaus who had had his arm around her – Klaus wasn't even _here – _but Stefan._

_Her heart sped, confusion pumping through her veins. Her dream had obviously caused her to think Klaus had been with her when she woke, but why he'd even been on her mind to dream of in the first place wasn't as clear. Nor did she have any idea why Stefan's arm had been around her. _

_Her dream still plagued her but the voices that had woken her grew louder and it drew her attention as she recognised it to be chanting – in the middle of the night._

_She frowned at Stefan who had also begun to stir._

_"What the hell is that?"_

"To what end did they kill themselves?" Klaus asked.

Caroline shrugged, really not in the mood for talking about that or much else right now.

"No idea."

"Is Stefan alright?"

"_Stefan_?" she asked, frowning.

"Yes, you mentioned doppelganger blood," he reminded.

She rubbed her brow. "Right. Yeah, Stefan's fine. We got out of there after we realised Travellers are total nut jobs."

"Warned you, love," he replied smugly.

She rolled her eyes. "Ok then. Night."

"Are you certain that's the extent of it?" he asked, concern evident in his voice.

"Was that not horrifying enough for an average Caroline Forbes day?" she asked dryly.

She expected a chuckle but none came.

"It just seems as if something else is bothering you."

_Yes. You._

"Because you're such an expert on me and all," she shot back.

"Exhibit A – you're even more hostile than usual," he pointed out.

She really wished she could glare at him.

"I don't need this right now, Klaus," she sighed.

There was silence for a few more seconds before he lightly sighed too.

"Goodnight, Caroline."

She took a deep breath, biting on her lip. She didn't end the call and neither did he.

If she'd had the presence of mind she probably would have become uncomfortable in the ensuing awkward silence, but her mind was still stuck on that dream.

She couldn't remember much of what had happened after they'd sped away together, but every now and then little moments would creep back to her and replay behind her eyelids. Intimate stuff, mostly, but there was also the way his eyes bore into her as they spoke of her incomparable beauty without his mouth having to say a word. Because those blue eyes never roamed from her, not after having been forced to spend more than a day without seeing her. Not when she was all he wanted to see.

And his voice on the other end of the line, that had brought back some snippets too; things he'd said to her in the dream.

_I'm sorry, Caroline, I simply couldn't stay away._

_Anything you want._

_No need to ask, love. I'll stay._

That damn accent and his stupid sexy voice.

"I don't think you should call me anymore," she blurted.

He sucked in a breath, something she instinctively knew he hadn't meant for her to hear. Well, ten points to _her_, she guessed, for catching the Original Hybrid off-guard.

"What?"

"You heard me. I don't want to do this anymore. I mean, yeah, it's been pretty fun, but this… nightly _thing_ has got to stop."

"Where is this coming from, Caroline?"

From the fact that he was _obviously _lodging himself in her mind so deeply that soon it would be impossible to remove him.

And she couldn't handle dreams like the one she'd had just a few hours ago, she really couldn't. Not when she wouldn't actually be seeing him again for another ten years or so. The temptation was too much. She felt such an intense need for him – especially after that goddamned dream – that she was surprised she hadn't pulled her own hair out yet. And she couldn't be feeling this way if she expected to lead a normal life for any measure of time.

"The rational part of my mind," she answered, pinching her eyes closed as she realised what it was going to take to drive her point home. "Do you get it? Just don't call me anymore."

Klaus sighed. "I understand that you've had a rough day – "

"God, stop trying to rationalise this! I'm not in a bad mood, I've just made a decision that's best for me, ok? You said I wouldn't have to look you in the eye again, well now I don't want to hear your voice either. _Stop calling_."

He seemed nonplussed by her response and she hated herself for it.

But if this was what it took to retrieve her sanity; to have normal dreams again about stuff like planning dorm parties and picking out outfits, then it was what she had to do.

She could hear him begin to say something; yet another attempt at making her see reason because he just couldn't ever give up on her – but she beat him to it.

"Free, remember? You promised."

He didn't say goodbye.

* * *

I am not responsible for anything Klaus killed after the close of this chapter ;)

Let me know what you thought pretty please and whether I'm doing an adequate job of erasing all the Steroline, ha :)


	7. Chapter 7

More compensating, though not as much as last time. I'm sorry the last chapter made everyone sad! I was actually working on this one as you guys were sending me your reviews (just blame all your lovely words from Ch5 for all the motivation), which was pretty cool.

…4 chapters left.

Enjoy :)

* * *

**Chapter 7: Resident Evil**

_Getting to sleep_

"Want some ice-cream?" Caroline asked her mother hopefully.

Liz smirked. "That sounds amazingly unhealthy but I think I'll try and get some rest considering I almost died today."

Caroline pouted. "Which is why we should have ice-cream!"

Liz narrowed her eyes at her daughter. "You're trying to avoid something, aren't you?"

"What? No, I'm not," she protested.

Liz laughed, shaking her head. "Caroline, I know you."

She stared her daughter down but when Caroline didn't relent she sighed.

"When you change your mind, I'll be here. For now you go get your Ben and Jerry's while _I_ get into bed."

Caroline smiled a little. "Ok, Mom." She sighed in relief. "I'm really glad you're ok."

Liz placed a kiss on her daughter's cheek as she stood up to locate her pajamas.

"And I'm really glad there isn't somebody else living in my brain anymore. Please thank Tyler for me."

Caroline nodded then walked out of her mother's bedroom, entering the kitchen. Tapping her foot, she bit her lip as she looked at the freezer. She was pretty sure they had some Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough in there.

She really wanted to heed her mother's indirect advice though, especially when she knew that she'd just be eating her feelings if she got that ice-cream out. She fidgeted with her fingers before pulling out her phone and checking it for about the tenth time that night.

Seriously. The one time she needed him to be his usual jerk self who was completely unable to take a hint, so of course it was the only time he chose to actually listen to her.

_Jerk._

Precisely three seconds later she was sitting cross-legged on the sofa with the tub of Ben &amp; Jerry's and a rather large spoon. She loved vampire speed.

Still, she checked her phone again, just in case.

Still nothing. She wanted to throw it across the room or crush it between her fingers or do anything to break it enough so that she could believably lull herself into thinking that that was why it wasn't ringing.

Instead she switched on the TV. Naturally there was absolutely nothing good on, but she settled for flipping through the channels as she delivered scoop after scoop of icy cold goodness into her mouth.

She stopped when she came across a repeat programming of a really bad Spanish soap opera. The dubbing was terrible and the acting was surprisingly worse but she watched as every character made idiotic decisions and for ten minutes she didn't feel like the dumbest person in the room. Then Evita confessed to Bermudo that she was completely madly in love with him – accompanied by crocodile tears and a dramatic collapse into his arms of course – and Caroline felt like crap again.

She took a gulp of ice-cream, changed the channel, checked her phone then dug out some more ice cream.

* * *

Caroline pried her eyes apart.

The fingers on her right hand were numb – not surprising considering the deathly grip she had on her phone – and her head felt like she was suffering from whatever the fatal version of a brain freeze was – probably also not surprising, considering the empty tub of ice-cream standing on the floor beside the sofa.

The TV was on some silly game show, the bright flashing being what had probably woken her.

Swapping her phone into her left hand, Caroline worked her fingers, trying to get blood pumping into them again.

Blood.

That sounded like an awesome idea right now.

Making sure to tiptoe, Caroline sped to get a bloodbag from the kitchen then got back to the couch. Again she checked her phone, this time more for the time than anything else. It was clear he wouldn't be phoning.

4AM, crap.

She began to sip at the AB positive, feeling stupid for not having gone straight to bed earlier. True, she'd felt pretty wired but honestly the main reason she'd stayed up was because she'd hoped he would ignore the stupid order she'd given last night.

It was idiotic, really, but she supposed she'd been banking on the fact that he had to know how much she needed to hear his voice; that maybe he needed hers.

But she'd played dirty, hadn't she? Reminding him of that damn promise hadn't been fair and she'd played it like a freaking trump card.

She felt a little disgusted with herself, of how manipulative she'd been. Especially when it hadn't even been for something she'd actually wanted. Was she really so drawn to sabotaging herself and her own happiness? Because seriously – the guy who was still in love with Elena then the werewolf with anger issues and then _not _the only person who had never let her feel bad about herself in his presence?

Before she knew it, she was dialling.

She held her breath, her heart pounding, as she listened to the ringing tone. She wanted to slap herself because _holy hell _it was freaking 4AM and she'd made it clear that their thing was over but who was she kidding? She knew that all she _really_ wanted was for him to pick up.

Because she couldn't blame him if he didn't, even if he wasn't asleep.

_She _wouldn't pick up if the roles had been reversed.

"Caroline."

Her mouth went dry and she shot a forlorn look at the empty bloodbag on her lap.

"Um… hey."

"It's early," he noted.

"I'm sorry for waking you," she said sheepishly.

"I wasn't asleep."

"Oh."

She tried to imagine him in a pub or wrapped around some girl but there was complete silence on the other end of the line, nothing to indicate that he was anywhere but home.

"What were you doing?" she couldn't stop herself from asking.

There was a brief pause followed by a light sigh.

"Staring at the ceiling."

_Oh._

_Maybe he did need her voice after all._

"Good night's sleep – overrated," she joked.

She imagined him smiling at that; the corners of his mouth drawing up because of her.

"Was there something you needed?" he asked after another pause.

It wasn't hostile or mean but it also wasn't the tone he usually addressed her with. It was… distant. Formal; business-like.

She couldn't apologise to this Klaus, not when his guard was up the way it was now. She tried to think of something, anything, that would bring her Klaus back but her mind drew a blank.

She ran a hand through her hair, pressing her eyes closed as she realised this had been a mistake. She opened her mouth to say so but something completely different came out.

"My mom almost died today," she blurted.

"What?" he exclaimed.

She heard rustling, like he'd shot straight up in bed.

His concern for her mother made her smile.

"Well, kind of. She had a Traveller in her brain. Tyler stabbed her with the Traveller knife to kill it and I gave her my blood."

"Then she's alright?"

_Stop smiling, stop smiling, stop smiling damnit._

"Yeah."

She stared down at her sparkly blue toenails, noting how good it had felt to share that with him.

At some point it should really stop surprising her how good everything about him made her feel.

"Are _you _alright?" he asked, like he couldn't help himself.

"Not really." She swallowed. "Klaus, I'm sorry."

When he didn't say anything, she continued.

"I was a total jerk last night and I hate myself for it. I didn't mean what I said. I… I don't want to stop talking to you."

He didn't say anything for a few seconds and she wondered whether he was waiting for her to say more or whether he just wouldn't be saying anything at all, regardless.

"Are you going to tell me what last night was about?"

She took a breath of relief when he replied then immediately bit her lip at his words.

"If I say no are you going to hang up?"

Silence.

"Look, I just – "

"Caroline – "

They both started then abruptly stopped speaking.

She sighed. "Go ahead."

"You know I would never do that, Caroline. But I think I deserve an explanation."

She played with a loose thread on her pajama shorts.

He was right. She'd gone completely haywire on him – she couldn't just expect everything to be ok again without providing him with an explanation.

But this was also Klaus. Nothing worked the same way it did with anybody else.

"How about… I promise to tell you but not right now?"

Klaus took a short breath, a smile tugging at his lips. The things this woman did to him.

She knew him too well, that was the problem. Well, most of the problem. The rest was, of course, that there was little he could deny her. _Little _because he knew the truth was _nothing_, but he had his pride after all.

He liked bargaining, particularly with her, and she knew that. He liked her sweet teasing and she knew that too.

"At my request?"

He enjoyed sweetening the deal.

"As long as it's not tonight," she promised.

"Then we have a deal, love."

Caroline grinned. There was the Klaus she knew and… _do not finish that sentence. _

"It's 4AM," he said suddenly.

She smirked, raising an eyebrow as she wondered what he was getting at.

"That it is."

"_The early hours of the morning._"

The suggestion was clear in his voice but the words were familiar too and it took her only a second to place them before her cheeks pinked.

"Oh, god."

"I haven't even begun, there's no need to express pleasure just yet, sweetheart," he chuckled.

She slapped a hand to her mouth, her blush deepening.

"What are you wearing?" he asked, his voice low.

Caroline's eyes widened even as she supressed a giggle.

"_Klaus_," she warned.

"It's a simple question, love."

She rolled her eyes, shifting as she considered.

Then, biting back a smile, she prepared her huskiest, most seductive voice.

"Sexy red lingerie," she whispered.

Klaus groaned like he was being tortured and she heard him roll over.

"Be serious, Caroline."

"_Be serious_? You just asked me what I'm wearing!"

"I expected an honest answer."

She raised an eyebrow even though he couldn't see it.

"Well I could always go change."

He chuckled, disregarding her reply for the tease it was.

"What are you doing?"

She looked around the room, noting shamefacedly the empty tub of Ben &amp; Jerry's.

"Sitting on the sofa. I fell asleep after eating a ton of ice-cream and the TV's on, so basically I'm on a sugar high I'm never coming down from, in front of a flashing screen. Which is great, since you know, it's not like I need sleep or anything," she rambled.

Klaus laughed and she dropped down on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. Suddenly her eyes narrowed.

"What are _you _wearing?"

"Nothing."

She sucked in a breath audibly and Klaus chuckled.

"Just kidding, love. Though I could certainly strip for you if you wanted."

Caroline gulped, beginning to use her top to fan herself.

"Just so you know, you are _so_ not helping with the whole 'getting to sleep' thing."

He laughed for a few seconds, clearly amused by her reaction, before the other end of the line went silent for a while.

"I want you to go to your bedroom and lie down on your side," he suddenly said.

His voice and demanding tone sent a shiver down her spine.

And as much as Caroline Forbes hated being ordered around, she was on her bed and awaiting his next command in seconds.

She bit on her lip to keep from asking for it.

"Imagine that I'm behind you, running my hands through your hair," he said.

He so badly wanted to there with her, stroking his fingers through the silk of her blond locks.

"My hand is moving down, over your… tank top and shorts," he decided, "and down over your bare leg."

She smiled at him correctly guessing exactly what she was wearing but her breathing shallowed at the thought of his skin touching hers again. The hair on her top leg raised as she imagined Klaus running his hand over it slowly and purposefully. She knew from experience how good he was with his hands and she quivered just thinking about what his next words would be.

"Then slowly back up and around your waist."

She closed her eyes, remembering the weight of Stefan's arm last night but in her mind replaced his hand with Klaus' – the long artist's fingers settling over her hand, the callouses in his palm caressing her skin.

"I pull you in tightly, as close to me as possible. You're safe," he whispered assuredly.

She did feel safe. She always did with him.

Then she frowned, realising something.

"Is this like the _PG_ version of phone sex, or something?"

"You said that you wanted to go to sleep, love," Klaus replied, sounding amused.

"Oh. Right."

Perfect. Add that as number 508 678 on the list of times she'd embarrassed herself in front of Klaus.

On the plus side she did actually feel just about ready to go to sleep. Every part of her body was relaxed and her mind was starting to cloud over with everything and nothing at the same time. And then there was Klaus' voice, which – how did he even do that? She'd heard him threaten and yell with all the hate and malice possible for a single voice to imbue and yet here he was, practically putting her to sleep.

"I move your hair back so I can kiss your shoulder," he continued.

She knew how that felt.

In fact she was pretty sure Klaus had an obsession with the skin there.

After every time they'd finished, he'd gone back there, no matter whether she was on top or beneath; in front or in his lap. He'd drag her hair away, laying feather-light kisses against her collarbone and up into her neck, before beginning the journey all over again as she attempted to catch her breath.

At the time she'd wanted to protest because it had felt way too personal, like a non-verbal _l love you and this is more than just sex_, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to.

She relished the memory; imagined him doing it to her now.

Her breathing slowed and steadied; her going body completely slack under his imagined affections but very real voice.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"_So_ relaxed," she admitted in what was hardly even a whisper, her mind just barely holding on.

Klaus smirked. If he didn't know any better he'd think he had compelled her over the phone.

He listened to her even breathing, knowing it wouldn't be long now till she fell asleep. And he found himself wishing for something he had never, in a thousand years, wished for.

He wanted to be there with her; to spend the night with her. Not to gain pleasure from her admittedly perfect body but simply to be there with her in the way he had described. He wanted to _sleep _with her.

He wondered what dawn looked like with Caroline Forbes lying beside you.

He hesitated with his next question but he refused to be cowardly again, so he forced it out.

"Do you really find it impossible to stop thinking about me, Caroline?"

She nodded, forgetting in her exhausted stupor that he couldn't see her.

"I miss you, Klaus. I miss you a lot."

For a second he forgot to breathe, then a smile settled on his face.

He would sleep tonight.

"Goodnight, love."

"Klaus?" she drawled out his name, desperately trying to stay awake for another minute. "Thank you. I don't think I could've…"

With that she made good on her promise to fall asleep in the middle of a sentence.

* * *

So the next one's going to be lots of fluffy fun. I think. I haven't actually written it yet. But I figure I'm going to be in a good mood what with not having to watch an episode to match up Caroline's behaviour and actions with the chapter. You know things are bad when you're thankful for an episode _not _having your favourite character in it, sigh.

Okaaaay how was this one? Tell me, tell me, tell meeee :) As I said, I usually start writing the next chapter at like 20 reviews. Love all y'all!


	8. Chapter 8

I'm so so so sorry this chapter took forever! First I had writer's block then I decided to use a fraction of my holiday to get away from my laptop and actually see some other living human beings (it was fun but let's be honest, this is where I belong), then I had _another_ batch of writer's block. It's been hard. I think a part of my writer's block was because I've already written a fic about headcanon for 5x19 (called _Unaccounted For_) since Caroline wasn't in the episode. Trying to outdo or re-do that story here with only phone calls was causing me headaches. Anyway, I hope you guys like how it did end up turning out.

Enjoy :)

* * *

**Chapter 8: Man on Fire**

_Loopholes_

Caroline woke with lips relaxed into a lazy grin.

It took her a minute to analyse exactly why she was smiling because if she'd had any amazing dreams then she certainly didn't remember them, but things became clearer when she realised that she'd gotten nine hours of solid sleep.

The sun was coming in brightly through her bedroom window so she supposed her mom had seen her deep slumber and decided not to wake her daughter before work.

Rolling over, Caroline noticed her phone beside her head. With a groan she realised that she absolutely did not remember saying goodbye to Klaus last night.

Snatching up her phone, she checked for a continuing call but there was none.

Remembering what Klaus had said when she'd once warned him about her falling asleep while they were on the phone together, Caroline quickly sent him a text.

**_Indecencies?_**

The reply was rapid.

**Unfortunately my plan was thwarted by the call being on your dime, sweetheart.**

Oh, right. For a second there she'd forgotten that she'd been the one to call him.

She typed her reply with a small smile.

**_Ever the gentleman._**

**I resent the implied sarcasm in that.**

She threw her head back laughing.

After reading it a few more times between her intermittent giggles, Caroline set her phone aside to stretch.

She'd set today aside as her study day and she wished she'd had the presence of mind yesterday to pack her books. With all the panic of finding out from Tyler that her mom had almost died, she hadn't given it much thought, but now she realised she would've liked to stay home and study. Instead she had to drive all the way to Whitmore and possibly have to contend with noise and definitely a bed that was not her own.

Her phone went off again and she smiled reflexively.

** Plans for the day? **

She frowned a little. It wasn't exactly normal for them to exchange the details of their days with each other.

**_Studying. You?_**

**Same. Calculus.**

She rolled her eyes at his attempt to mock her.

His day probably involved way more plotting and murdering than mathematical problems.

**_You're hilarious._**

**So I'm told. **

She rolled her eyes but smiled in spite of herself before swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. She needed to take a quick shower then get to Whitmore so she could begin her day of intense studying. Exams were coming up in a few weeks and she planned on being extra prepared.

* * *

Caroline dumped her ringbinder and two textbooks onto the bed.

She was about to drop down onto her bed to begin summarising when her phone began vibrating on the dressing table.

Caroline sighed, conflicted about whether to get it or not. On the one hand she'd specifically left it there so she wouldn't have the opportunity to become distracted. On the other, the call could be important. Or Klaus.

It was a long shot but she was still across the room in seconds and sure enough, it was the hybrid himself.

She rolled her eyes when she answered. "I was about to start studying, you know."

"Apologies, love," he said, not sounding sorry in the least.

"And it's daytime. I thought our calls were a nightly thing," she continued complaining.

"_'Thing?'_ And here I was under the impression that they were all entirely separate, unrelated incidences."

She could always hear when he was smirking.

And as much as she didn't want to give him the satisfaction, she couldn't stop herself from giggling a little.

"Whatever. I'm guessing you called for a reason?"

"Yes. I realised I never enquired about whether you slept or well or not – deplorable considering we went to bed together."

Caroline bit her lip to hold back a smile.

"You like saying that, huh?"

"I get a certain kick out of it," he admitted laughingly.

"So this is what a girl gets after a night with Klaus Mikaelson? A phone call?" she teased.

"I like to think the night is a reward of its own," he said lowly.

Caroline rolled her eyes, still biting her lip.

"Of course you do."

Her gaze searched the room and she swallowed guiltily when she spotted the books on her bed.

"I slept really well, Klaus, thanks. I should go, though. Take advantage of the dorm being miraculously empty."

As she said that, she frowned. She hadn't contacted either of her best friends today yet and only now she realised that she had no idea where they were.

Klaus chuckled. "Enjoy the quiet, love."

The call ended and she was about to re-place her phone on the dresser when she hesitated, her gaze jumping back to where she'd be studying.

Maybe she should keep her phone on the bedside table.

* * *

"I'm _studying_."

"Then your phone should be turned off."

"Thanks for the advice, _Dad_. Anything else?"

Klaus chuckled. "I'm bored."

Caroline rolled her eyes. "Ok, go kill someone or something. Leave _me_ alone."

"Did you just authorise cold-blooded murder?"

Caroline's eyes widened when she realised that was exactly what she'd done before scoffing when she realised he was taunting her.

"_Somebody_'s going to get murdered if you don't get off the line right now."

"That would be quite the threat if it didn't inherently imply you coming to visit."

Her mouth fell open in shock for a few moments before she started giggling.

"You're seriously impossible."

"Also there's the whole 'immortal' thing," Klaus continued as if she hadn't said anything.

Caroline huffed. "Isn't there some kind of bar nearby? Isn't that where you normally go when you're bored?"

"It's become rather… boring," he admitted.

She groaned again. "Fine, then… read a book."

"Not in the mood."

"Sketch something."

"No inspiration."

"_Seriously_?"

"Unless you're willing to send over a snapshot?" he cajoled.

She snorted. "Yeah, like that's gonna happen."

"Why not?"

"Because…"

She found herself at a loss for an excuse. 'I look like I've been studying for four hours' wouldn't fly because she could just imagine him saying he didn't care, and 'It's creepy that you need me for inspiration' seemed a little mean. Especially when she actually considered the request sort of flattering.

"I'm not… decent," she eventually managed.

Klaus laughed. "You're a terrible liar, Caroline. Besides, I think we both know that I have a particular fondness for your indecent state."

She shivered, remembering him lightly but purposefully tracing the line of her pelvis from her hipbone all the way down to the inside of her thigh.

Blushing, she looked down at her books as she considered.

Eventually she sighed. "If I send you one, are you going to leave me alone?"

"I promise."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I've heard that one before."

"You say that as if I broke it. I simply found a loophole in our agreement."

"Uh-huh."

Klaus laughed again, seemingly pretty damn aware of how guilty he was. She liked reminding him of how all this was technically breaking his promise, despite the fact that she actually really enjoyed getting to talk to him.

When she wasn't trying to study, anyhow. She opened her mouth to utter a goodbye but he spoke first.

"Then you'll send it?"

Caroline nibbled at her lip for a good long minute before relenting.

"_Fine_. But I'm only sending one and you're going to delete it right after."

Klaus made a tiny sound of amusement but agreed and she ended the call.

Standing up, she quickly sped over to her dressing table. Noting that with the exception of her hair she looked pretty good, she began fluffing her blond mane. She cursed when she realised that constantly running her hands through it while she'd been studying had resulted in it being too fluffy in some places and completely flat in others. Grabbing up a hair tie, she pulled it up into a ponytail instead.

_Ok, no._

Next she tried an artfully messy bun.

It took four attempts but eventually she had it arranged into something that looked good enough to capture and send to another person – _ahem, Klaus – _but not like she could be called out for having spent too long on it.

Quickly she took the picture and sent it off to him before directing rapt attention to her books.

* * *

"You promised," she groaned.

"To leave you alone," he agreed. "Which I did. Earlier."

Caroline threw back her head with another groan. "I need a new number."

"You could just _not answer_," he suggested laughingly, seemingly tickled by her annoyance.

"That's rude," she pointed out.

"I have to agree. You should always answer my calls. Preferably as fast as possible."

"Keep dreaming," she scoffed. "I think I prefer just turning my phone off."

"A solid idea and – " Klaus started, then broke off.

In the background she heard someone speak to him in a hushed tone.

"Hold on, love," Klaus said apologetically.

She frowned and listened in as Klaus replied.

"I thought that was your job, mate."

"It needs your signature."

"First tax and land issues, now this. Does it seem as if I enjoy clerical work, Paul?"

"Uh, no… sir. It's just that that needs your signature on every page."

There was a pause before Klaus sighed.

"I'd get out of my line of vision now if I were you," Klaus threatened.

There was hasty scuffling followed by a door shutting and Caroline giggled.

"Ooh, am _I _safe?"

"You aren't in my line of vision," Klaus smirked.

"Lucky me," she joked.

Klaus shook his head amusedly as he paged through the document he'd just been handed.

"So, what was that about?" she asked. "Calculus getting you down?"

"You're hilarious."

"So I'm told," she smiled.

Klaus chuckled before closing the contract with a light sigh.

"I'm acquiring a property and it seems I'm actually expected to do some paperwork."

She pulled a mocking pouty face even though she knew he couldn't see it.

"_Poor baby_," Caroline replied, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

Klaus laughed. "Mock all you want but the amount of hurdles I've had to jump just to secure this purchase has made me wish I'd simply gone about it the underhanded way."

She was about to put on her best baby voice and be all _Awww poor wittle hybrid baby wegs jumping over those high hurdles _when her eyes widened in surprise.

"Wait. You're saying you're actually buying this property? Like, with proper money and stuff?"

He smirked. "This surprises you?"

She blinked. "Um, no. Well… maybe," she cracked a smile.

Klaus smiled too, leaning back in his office chair. "Every once in a while I'm prone to acting in the manner the government dictates. Especially now that my father is out of the way, I don't have to be concerned about paper trails."

Caroline nodded. It made sense.

"So what's the big deal about this property, then? Why's it the lucky pick to get bought all legit and stuff?" she teased.

He was silent for a few seconds, considering, before he eventually replied.

"I plan on building a house on it."

She pulled a face. "Do you _really_ need another house?"

Klaus chuckled. "This one will be different. Untainted by the past or present and intended for the future."

His explanation made her frown, something about his words stirring a thought, but she shook her head to clear it.

"Ok… is it in the Quarter?"

Klaus smiled, intrigued by her interest.

"That's a surprise."

"I hate surprises," she pouted.

"You love surprises," he countered with a smirk.

God, it was annoying how well he knew her.

"Well one surprise I'm going to hate is if I get an F for this exam, so I need to go now."

He chuckled. "I'll call back once I've finished with these documents."

"Don't you dare."

"I very much enjoy your threats, sweetheart."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm hanging up."

* * *

She was about ready to go to bed but instead of crawling under her duvet right now, Caroline was settled into her trusty armchair, ready for him.

"My day was _awful_," she answered on the first ring, employing her best fake-dramatic voice.

"Is that so?" Klaus asked, very obviously holding back laughter.

"Yeah. I kept trying to study but there was this _relentless_ werewolf-vampire who kept hounding me!"

"I hope you told him off good and proper."

"Nope. But that's a good idea – next time I'll tell him exactly where to shove it."

Klaus laughed, long and hard, and Caroline curled up more comfortably on the armchair. Stefan was upstairs with Elena in the girls' dorm room and she probably would have given in to eavesdropping by now if Klaus hadn't called when he had.

"I found out where everybody was all day," she began with.

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, apparently Enzo went all crazy and decided to hold the local café hostage right before trying to kill Damon, Stefan and Elena."

Klaus let out what sounded suspiciously like a snort.

"Am I being out-villained?"

Before she could stop herself, Caroline barked out a laugh.

"I'm not sure that's even possible."

"You flatter me," Klaus teased. "I'm assuming Damon wasn't too pleased by your absence?"

"Yeah, I got a message from him hours after he left it, asking where I was."

"Because God forbid you should miss a day of nightmarish adventures."

Ok, that made her giggle.

And maybe just blush _a little _because she loved how concerned he always seemed about how her days. Still, she needed a retort.

"You didn't seem to mind it when _you_ were the villain."

"Ah," he laughed, "we did have adventures, didn't we? Though I dare say they weren't quite nightmarish?" he enquired sweetly.

She forced a snort. "You _would_ think that. You didn't get staked in the stomach with a lamp."

Klaus chuckled. "What did we say about grudges, sweetheart? Besides, I don't recall you complaining about any nightmares in the woods."

Immediately the blush was back.

"You're a jerk."

Plus… the whole 'nightmares in the woods' thing was reminding her about the dream she'd had about Klaus the other night, which not only made her uncomfortable but also led to thoughts about how mean she'd been to him and her subsequent promise that she'd explain it all at his request…

Caroline wrung her hands as she realised that they'd made that compromise last night. If he wanted, he could bring it up right now and she would be forced to tell him what had crawled under her skin that night. Which was a problem, because she didn't feel ready to talk about it just yet or to put any of her complicated feelings into words.

"I'm beginning to take that as a compliment."

"Smart," she replied glibly, her mind mostly still elsewhere.

"Agreed, considering it's all I ever get from you."

His comment was light and teasing but she knew him well enough to recognise the slight undertone of dejectedness.

Quickly she cast a glance around – tonight the common room was completely empty. Apparently Incredibly Studious Dude had decided to take a night off (_ha, that totally meant she beat him in the studying department today!_).

"You're sexy," she admitted after a heavy breath. "Well-read; intelligent. Charming to the point of annoyance. All of which is I guess why I – "

_fell for you._

She didn't finish the sentence but Klaus had gone completely silent on the other end of the call and it made her smile. He wasn't used to this from her. To be honest, she wasn't even really sure where it was coming from. Maybe it was because she wanted him to know that she liked spending time with him; maybe because he was always the one giving her all the compliments.

But she had the sneaky feeling that it was actually a whole lot simpler – she missed him. She missed him and she wanted to reminisce about how being with him had felt.

"You smell really good. Like, _really _good. Manly and really clean, it's distracting," she reprimanded with a laugh.

It was true. Her every rebuff of the Original had been pretty damn difficult to pull off when he smelled the way he did. And that was only counting the information she'd gotten from _one _of her senses.

She sometimes found it funny how her friends still couldn't really wrap their heads around her sleeping with Klaus because, god, when she thought about it, she had no idea how she'd managed to hold out for so long.

"Your accent's really hot, obviously. But there's something else about the way you speak – all soft and dangerous with that almost non-existent lisp."

Honestly, she wasn't sure what she was doing anymore. In some part of her mind she'd kind of forgotten that she was on the phone with Klaus and currently she had her head back with her eyes closed as she thought about being in the same room as Klaus. Or, well, whatever the woods counted as.

"Uh, your hair…"

_Pulling her hands through it; tugging desperately at the blond curls._

"Lips, necklaces, the henleys – it's all just very distracting and… _oh. _You have this mole near your Adam's apple and when I kiss it you swallow all nervously."

"And you find this attractive?" Klaus asked incredulously, speaking for the first time in a while.

"Yes!" she laughed, like it was obvious. Then she smiled wistfully. "You think your reaction makes you seem weak so automatically your hold on me tightens, and it reminds me that we're both a little insecure."

Her mind wandered to their second time, still up against that tree – how it had still stood after they'd left the woods that night was anybody's guess – when they'd gotten over the crazed desperation and had begun properly exploring.

"I love kissing your chest," she admitted.

His body was hard but receiving at the same time as her lips settled in each new spot, then down over his defined abs and lower still, sliding down to –

_Shit._

Caroline's eyes popped open and her head flew off the headrest as she jerked upright, the reality of the situation hitting her like a speeding truck.

What the hell was she doing? Why was she telling Klaus all this?

_Why did she keep thinking about that freaking day?_

"Uhhhhh," she stuttered. "Um. In conclusion, you're right, not totally nightmarish," she laughed nervously.

Before he had the chance to reply, Caroline's phone buzzed in her hand. And Caroline Forbes had never been religious but right then she thanked every single deity known to man.

**Coming up?**

"Elena just texted me, I have to go."

"Let's not keep the doppelganger waiting," Klaus responded drily.

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Night."

"Goodnight, love."

She didn't end the call though; spent a few more seconds listening to him breathe.

"Caroline?"

"Yeah?"

"I think you forgot something very important from the list of my best traits."

The smirk again.

_Why was she smiling ridiculously broadly?_

"What?"

"Master of PG phone sex."

* * *

Caroline was crawling into bed, about to turn off her phone when it vibrated in her hand.

She frowned at the notification that told her she had a new multimedia text from Klaus.

Quickly she opened it and her breath caught. Because duh, he'd gone and sent her the sketch he'd done of her that afternoon.

It was done in charcoal but the detail was amazing and Caroline felt pretty sure he'd made her look better than she had looked in the image she'd sent him. Because the girl in his sketch looked less like someone who had spent a day with her textbooks and more like someone who had just had the best sex of her life… or something. Caroline could just tell that behind that mouth lay a big juicy secret that the charcoal-blonde wasn't willing to share with just anyone yet.

Not wanting to incite another phone call from the hybrid, Caroline didn't reply, but she made a quick mental note to tell him tomorrow that she hadn't _completely hated_ his re-production (she figured she'd given him way more than enough proper compliments today). Right before she'd threaten to throttle him because her picture had been meant purely for inspiration purposes, not copying.

Of course he'd promised to delete it – because he'd known that he would have a duplicate.

Klaus and his loopholes.

She glared at her phone before her mouth softened into a smile again as she looked at the way he'd drawn her.

She clicked Save.

* * *

Again, I'm sooooooo sorry for how long this took but I hope the length makes up for it a little.

Please review and let me know what you thought :)


	9. Chapter 9

I've already had the important bits of this chapter written for the longest time but I still had to sit down and re-watch Caroline's parts in the episode and add in that stuff. Luckily I didn't have to go to university today so I was able to do that last night :)

I love the name of this episode because I hardly even needed to add a subtitle for the chapter, heh.

… 2 chapters left.

Enjoy :)

* * *

**Chapter 9: What Lies Beneath**

_She confesses_

Caroline debated with herself for a whole second then whipped out her phone and dialled.

It only rang twice before Klaus picked up.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?"

She could hear that he was smiling and Caroline felt a grin of her own spreading over her face.

"I was thinking about you."

"Really? What are you doing?" he asked, sounding amused.

"Watching my woodshed burn down," she replied.

She swore she heard him trying to withhold laughter.

"Is that some sort of metaphor?"

"No! I'm _literally_ watching a woodshed burn down. We're all up at the Forbes cabin."

"And how did the fire come about?"

Caroline sighed. "Enzo's ghost decided to try and kill Damon and Stefan but ended up killing my woodshed instead."

"The unsavoury character strikes again… from beyond the dead. Interesting."

She frowned in confusion before remembering Klaus' warning about Enzo.

"Ok, ok. I get it, you told me so."

"As much as I enjoy hearing you admit to me being right, love, I'm more concerned about the ghost. Is he still a threat?"

Caroline shrugged. "I don't think so. Him and Damon struck some kind of deal."

Klaus nodded thoughtfully before he smirked, his tone turning teasing. "Then onto the question of why a burning structure made you think of me."

Caroline smiled but hesitated, not wanting to reveal her thought process just yet.

"Was it the destruction?" he cajoled curiously.

She bit her lip, withholding her reply.

"The passion?" he continued guessing smugly.

She nibbled at her lip, watching as the flames took away one of the last bits of her father she'd had left.

"We used to come up here for vacation and my dad always brought me out to collect wood."

Klaus didn't reply, correctly surmising that there was more to her story.

"I'd always start unpacking the second we got here and I think he didn't want me obsessing about colour-coding my luggage too, so he'd make me put on my warmest coat and practically pull me out here to collect wood with him."

She smiled nostalgically, thinking of her dad telling her funny stories as they made their way to the woodshed, her a little sullen because she was pretending to be going along with him against her will when really she'd loved any time she got to spend with him.

"And of course he never actually made me carry any wood so I'd get mad at him and he'd say that what he really needed was my company, otherwise he'd go crazy all by himself."

Caroline wrung her hands, the lapping flames burning into her retinas. It made her sad to think that she'd never again be able to come up here and spend a few minutes in the woodshed just remembering those days with her dad.

"I want a woodshed," she finished.

"Pardon?" Klaus asked in confusion.

She smirked. "I want a woodshed. For our house."

Klaus was silent as he worked through what she'd managed to figure out. It was the real reason why she'd been thinking of him – she'd figured it out.

"How did you know?"

"You said it would be untainted by history and meant for the future."

_And I want to be your future._

She held the words back but Klaus let out a small breathy laugh.

"Just when I think I cannot possibly become any more enamoured by you, Caroline…"

Her breath caught just as his tongue seemed to catch.

_Well that's why I like you._

Suddenly her hearing picked up slowly approaching footsteps coming from not too far away.

"Someone's coming, I have to go."

"Talk later?" Klaus asked hopefully.

"Yeah." She smiled. "But it's your turn to call."

He chuckled.

* * *

"Hey," she answered, her head half-stuck in her top. "Just… hold on a sec."

Quickly she removed it then pulled on a tank top.

"Sorry. Just undressing."

"Don't stop on my account," Klaus flirted.

She rolled her eyes but her cheeks pinked as she climbed out of her jeans and shimmied into sleeping pants.

"All done," she announced happily, before flopping backwards onto her bed. "_God_, what a day."

Klaus frowned. "Did something else happen?"

"Uh, _yeah_. Besides my woodshed burning down because of a freaking ghost, today I also endured being humiliated because of my two idiotic best friends, right before those two idiotic best friends went and got themselves kidnapped. A-grade day," she complained sarcastically.

"Stefan and Elena were kidnapped?"

"Yes," she sighed.

"And you're not on the case?" he asked in amused disbelief.

"Ha ha, very funny. Damon said we can't do anything more tonight and brought me home, though I'm assuming by the way he rushed off from here that he is in fact off to do something else tonight. Torture an innocent, probably. Anyway, I _will _be on the case tomorrow morning, bright and early."

Klaus chuckled. "Then I'm sure they'll be fine. What of the humiliation?"

Caroline groaned, slapping her hand to her face. "Oh, _god_."

"Come on, it can't be that bad."

Caroline sighed heavily again as she organised her thoughts.

"Ok, in retrospect, I'm not actually sure what got into me. But not that long ago Katherine was pretending to be Elena and very obviously and pretty heartlessly chasing after Stefan while ignoring all my advice and then today at the cabin the _real_ Elena is suddenly acting all secretive and smiley with Stefan about something and I guess it just… shook me up the wrong way."

"Elena reminded you of Katerina?"

"In a way, yeah. I mean they were so obviously hiding something and I couldn't think of anything that it could be except that they were back together again which freaked me out because – "

"You don't think they should get back together when they're both still hurting?" he completed, remembering what she'd told him after the Bitter Ball.

"Yes. Exactly. I mean I'm not saying they can't get into relationships without my approval or anything, but I was expecting at least _one _of them to come to me so I could gauge their mental state before they got back together again. I mean I love Stefan and Elena but I don't need the next three hundred years to be me negotiating the two of them as they keep breaking up and making up again. They need to be in the right place at the right time before they can get together again, and then just be happy forever, you know?"

"Understandable," Klaus said, but he sounded amused.

"But _then_… turns out the secret they were keeping was that Stefan killed Enzo!"

"Hence his angry ghost?" Klaus nodded.

"Yeah. And you know how that turned out. Anyway, I just felt so… left out of it all. I mean I get why they didn't tell Damon but I'm supposed to be their friend. Yet neither Stefan nor Elena thought to mention it to me. God, I just…"

"You just what?"

"I don't know. I just… I just sometimes think that I put all this effort into everything and everyone just thinks 'Oh, it's only Caroline being Caroline', but I do it because I really care about them. And all I get is being left out of the loop."

Klaus suddenly realised what Caroline's underlying issue was: her main goal was getting Stefan and Elena back to a healthy place so they could be together again while all they did in return was unnecessarily keep secrets from her.

"If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: none of them deserve you, sweetheart. Nor your efforts."

Rolling over, Caroline smiled a little. "Yeah. Maybe I should just give up. Elena can end up with _Damon _for all I care."

Klaus chuckled. "That's it, love. Let it all out."

"And Stefan can get your crazy sister. And they can all live unhappily ever after realising that they should've listened to me," she finished triumphantly.

On the other end of the line Klaus sounded highly amused by her rant and she couldn't deny that she felt better. On some level she hadn't understood her freakout today herself before she'd just verbalised it to Klaus, and right now she felt a lot better.

She rolled over onto her back again then let out a long breath.

"But seriously, I'm thinking from now on I should just stay out of it. I mean the only person who's getting egg on their face is me. Tonight Elena acted like I was jealous or something when really all I'm trying to do is look out for her. Although, in her defence, I was acting weird."

"I'm sure you can explain all once you retrieve them from wherever they've been taken."

"Good point," Caroline nodded.

Especially now that she knew exactly what the source of her actions had been.

"Has anyone ever told you that you'd make a really good psychologist?"

Klaus barked out a laugh. "I can't say they have, no."

Caroline pulled a face. "Yeah, you probably can't be a psychopath for that. Still, I swear these calls make my mind feel calmer."

"Did you just call me a psychopath and then compliment me?"

"If you look at it that way. You could also see it as me complimenting you twice," she pointed out.

Caroline rolled onto her stomach, sticking her feet into the air as she thought about the past few days and how her sanity had become strangely attached to this strange nightly communication _thing_ they'd set up.

Her mind wandered to everything she'd thought of as she'd watched her woodshed burn down and she frowned.

"Klaus, what did you think these calls would lead to?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, why did you start calling me? What did you think it would get you? Where did you think it would get _us_?"

"I was honest with you, Caroline. I simply missed you." He sighed. "Perhaps it was one of the rare times I didn't think my actions all the way through."

"Yeah but you kept calling. I mean, you couldn't have thought that we'd just keep talking on the phone for the next five hundred years, or whatever. It can't be enough indefinitely. But you promised, so you knew we wouldn't be seeing each other again."

Klaus was breathing heavily and she wondered if she'd angered him. It wasn't what she'd intended but she still did want an answer.

"I want to know what exactly you expected," she pressed.

"Caroline, I didn't – oh. This is about the house."

She didn't reply. He was right, to an extent.

"I'm sorry."

Caroline frowned in surprise. She hadn't been expecting that.

"You don't have to apologise," she started.

"It was presumptuous," he admitted, sounding ashamed.

She smiled. "No, I get it. I mean, you're the guy who's always one step ahead, right?" she teased.

Klaus laughed at his old mantra.

"Not with you."

_She was breathing heavily but she sat up, tossing her totally dishevelled hair over her shoulder. From behind her Klaus ran a thumb across her lower back and she shivered with the heat of the gesture. _

_"I have to go."_

_"Do you?" he wondered from behind her like some greasy old perv trying to tempt her into a bad decision._

_A really hot greasy old perv, with an accent that laced his every word into seduction._

_"Yes," she replied heavily._

_His lips had replaced his thumb at her back and the mouth she'd spent hours exploring went to work on her spine. _

_"Klaus," she breathed, her toes beginning to curl as she attempted resisting._

_"You have to go?" he asked, the smirk pressing into her vertebrae._

_"_Yes_," she bit out._

_His tongue came out, hot and thick against her bare back. He didn't need more access but she found herself bending forward._

_"Perhaps you could stay. Another hour or so," Klaus cajoled._

_He was kissing his way from her back around to her waist then to her abdomen._

_"You said that an hour ago."_

_"And it worked," he noted, kissing his way up her chest._

_"Oh god, Klaus," she groaned when he got to her breast._

_Klaus ducked his head as he sat up beside her, slowly sliding his hand up between her thighs._

_"I rather feel you're giving me mixed signals, love."_

_She threw her head back, wrapping her fingers in his hair. _

_"That's because _you _don't know how to take no for an answer."_

_Immediately he removed his hands and mouth from her and with a furrowed brow she reverted to her sitting position._

_"Well don't let me keep you, then. You clearly have more important things to get back to."_

_The infamous Klaus mood change. _

_His jaw was clenched and his eyes cold as he regarded her angrily. She knew how to handle this: just keep calm and try and be rational._

_"Klaus, they'll wonder where I am. It's getting dark," she pointed out._

_He took a few breaths through his nostrils before his jaw softened and he nodded._

_"I know."_

_Leaning forward, she placed light kisses over his shoulder. He buried his face in her hair as she relished the last tastes of his skin she was ever going to get. _

_"I don't want you to go," he confessed, so softly that she could easily have missed it._

_She paused her kisses to bite down on her lip – pain stopped tears._

_"I wish I didn't have to."_

_They both froze for a moment, surprised by her honesty, and she silently cursed before reminding herself that she was never going to see him again after today. She wouldn't have to deal with the considerate amount of awkwardness that could have followed this encounter._

_But, on the other hand: _she was never going to see him again after today.

_So she unfurled herself and drove her kisses up into his neck, laying them hotly on his skin with reckless abandon. When she walked away from here today nobody would ever be able to accuse Caroline Forbes of not being thorough._

_When she walked away from here today she wanted to be able to draw a map and chart the way every part of him tasted. _

"I know I made that promise in the woods, Caroline. But I also made you another, before that."

_I intend to be your last._

She remembered. She couldn't _not _remember.

"Perhaps it's a fool's errand but I still want to be prepared. And if that day never comes, well, at least I'll have a mansion on a hill to remind me."

"Remind you about what?" she whispered.

"You," he answered simply. "Us. Whatever could have been if – "

"_If_?" she pressed.

He sighed heavily. "If I weren't me."

Caroline swallowed guiltily. She wasn't even sure what it was she felt guilty about but right there in her throat sat a lump of the difficult-to-admit-to stuff. The lump that said _This used to be the guy with the biggest ego ever. Then he realised he wasn't good enough for me._

"Remember last night? When I didn't finish my sentence?"

Klaus took a moment to consider before nodding. "After you said I was charming to the point of annoyance, I believe."

She laughed a little at her backhanded compliment being repeated to her.

"Yeah. I should've finished it," she admitted.

Klaus frowned. "What were you going to say?"

She stared at her nails. At this point, with everything she'd already told him, did it matter if he knew exactly how deeply into all this she was?

How deeply into _him _she was?

"Sexy, well-read, intelligent; charming. Some of the reasons why I…" she squeezed her eyes closed. "I fell for you."

There was utter silence on the other end of the call for the longest time – complete silence, no breathing.

Seconds ticked by; she watched the hands on the clock move into a minute and a half before Klaus finally spoke again.

"Tell me."

She frowned. "Tell you? Tell you what?"

"What happened that night. Why you asked me not to call anymore."

Her eyes widened. All their phone calls in the meantime had lulled her into thinking that he'd forgotten about that night and their compromise.

She debated arguing or pleading her way out of this but she'd promised to explain at his request.

She seriously had to learn to think before she spoke.

_I wish I didn't have to. _

God. She was an expert at messing up in front of him; letting down the façade.

She was an expert at being her around him.

She let out a breath. "Ok."

She expected him to say something more, but he didn't, waiting. Caroline closed her eyes, re-living that night.

"So I had this dream – " She shook her head, interrupting herself. She didn't want to start that way. "I went to sleep with Stefan – "

She ignored Klaus' resulting growl.

"And I had a dream about… us."

"I sincerely hope you mean us as in me and you, not you and Stefan."

Biting back a giggle, Caroline rolled her eyes. "_Yes. _You and me. Now if you could put aside your jealous streak for two seconds so I can finish my story…"

He laughed. "Apologies, love."

"So in my dream some stuff happened and… you saved me."

"Well – "

"Then you kissed me." She gulped. "Everywhere."

She waited for a reply but none came so she barrelled on.

"And then I woke up but I didn't know that I'd been dreaming or even that I was awake and for a second I thought Stefan was you, but he wasn't. And my heart just…" She sighed, squeezing her eyes. "Plummeted."

"And then I called you," Klaus said, realisation seeming to dawn on him.

"Yeah. And I figured that if I hadn't been talking to you every night then I wouldn't have been thinking about you and I wouldn't have dreamed about you and I could've avoided that soul-crushing moment of disappointment."

He was quiet for another long while before he eventually replied tauntingly.

"That's a bit harsh, I'm sure Stefan isn't all that bad."

Her lips turned up but she could tell that he was using the joke as a cover.

"I'm sorry," she added.

"You've mentioned," Klaus replied, sounding like he was working something out in his mind.

"I know my reason for treating you the way I did is shitty. I just… let my emotions get the better of me, I guess. I don't always think things all the way through."

_Which reminded her._

"Stop speaking as if I haven't forgiven you, Caroline."

She frowned at his tone. "Are you mad?"

He sighed deeply. "I don't know what I am."

It was true.

The night of her rebuke had utterly confused him, as it had seemingly come from nowhere. His mood the next day had been dark and sadistic, even by his standards, and thus for the moment he couldn't remember the theories that had riddled his mind as he'd murdered his way through his feelings.

Still, he was certain that him having _gotten to her_ had never been one of them, and Klaus had absolutely no idea what to do with that.

Caroline was being incredibly honest with him today, which he was used to. However, what he _wasn't _used to was that honesty meaning anything good for him.

Not since _I know that you're in love with me._

Klaus warred with his thoughts as he listened to her pad around her room and the ensuing miscellaneous sounds that indicated her climbing into bed and switching off her bedside lamp.

Caroline had her blankets up to her chin when she decided.

It was now or never. Or, in vampire terms – now or in two hundred years or so.

She took a breath then swallowed and pulled her legs up to her chest.

"Can I tell you something?"

"Of course, love," Klaus replied, like the answer was obvious.

She supposed it was. There was nothing she could say that he didn't want to hear. Even her rejections because those still contained her voice, didn't they?

"The promise was bullshit."

"What?" He sounded confused. "Caroline, I meant what I said – "

"I know you did," she interrupted. "I didn't – or at least I wasn't completely honest about why I made you say it."

She closed her eyes and bit at her lip lightly.

"I _don't _want you to come back here. But that doesn't mean you won't still be my last love."

Klaus audibly sucked in a breath and she smiled. It felt really good to be getting all this off her chest.

"Because one day I'm going to be finished with the whole normal thing. I'm going to be done with the small-town, pretending-to-be-human thing. And then I'm gonna come find you. And I'm going to kiss you until you forget that you ever said I'd never have to see you again."

There was silence for a significantly long time during which she wondered if it was possible for vampires to have heart attacks, but when he finally spoke he sounded winded and pretty much like he_ had_ actually suffered a heart attack.

"Caroline, I – "

"Should I say it?"

Never – _never _– had something ever rendered him this breathless. His chest wasn't moving and it was causing his mind to come to a standstill or perhaps that was just the effect from her words, he couldn't be sure. Not of anything.

"Klaus?" she pressed.

She was scared – her heart was practically beating out of her chest – but she was also ready. So what if it would be years before she could act on her feelings? She felt it right now and he deserved to know.

"No," he answered eventually and her heart dropped.

Why wouldn't he want to hear the three words she felt like they'd been hurtling toward for the longest time now?

"Not over the phone."

* * *

Ooooooh ;)

So I did a post-coitus 5x11 scene which was risky because I know everyone has their own headcanon of how that went but I hope you were satisfied nevertheless. And then of course a million other things happened in this chapter so let me know what you thought :)


	10. Chapter 10

So, weird story, I was panicking because in my mind I thought this chapter was only going to be like 200 words long and then on the page it turned into almost 4 000…

The long wait has been on account of me having to force myself to sit down and re-watch Caroline's parts in the episode and S5 is just kind of painful all-round so that was hard to do, heh. But here it is!

When I asked what y'all wanted me to address, Klaus' reaction to the news about Stefan came up a few times so this has that in it. Please forgive me re-writing that scene in the episode. I know quite a few readers of this story didn't even watch Season 5 (an excellent decision) so I just felt it necessary to add even more context than I usually do in every chapter. Also I quite liked being able to explain some of Caroline's actions and reactions. Hopefully it's still interesting to read even for those who have watched the scene; I tried to write it thus.

**Important: **Episode 5x21 contains two nights, the second of which continues into 5x22 before another day. That makes three nights in total. In this chapter I address the first night and write the second night, and in the next chapter I'll write what happens the last night.

Enjoy :)

* * *

**Chapter 10: Promised Land**

_He helps_

**Ignoring me, love?**

**_I'm not ignoring you, I'm busy._**

**Too busy to text?**

**_Seriously? How are you even more of an annoying smartass through text?_**

**Is that your way of admitting to have been caught?**

**_NO because there's nothing to be caught for. I'm trying to intimidate my bodysnatched ex into helping us by giving him the silent treatment + death glare. It isn't exactly very scary if I take a phone call in front of him._**

**Bodysnatched? Travellers, I'm guessing?**

**_YES. Now go away, the whole death glare thing only works if it's being directed at him and not my phone. _**

**I love it when you glare at me. Very sexy.**

**_I'm turning my phone off._**

**Easy, love. Bodysnatched boyfriend explains today but not last night.**

**_I went to bed early. _**

**_I was tired and traumatised from watching Damon torture a bank manager._**

**There's no need to avoid me.**

**_I'm not avoiding you. But I am busy._**

**Very well. We'll speak later.**

** Tell the Traveller he's an improvement on that body's last resident, though I confess that's no recommendation in particular.**

Caroline bit at her lip to keep the spreading grin on her face at bay as she read through the text messages her and Klaus had exchanged that afternoon. Even his thinly veiled dig at Tyler made her want to smile.

"What's that about?"

Caroline broke away from her daze, automatically locking her phone as she turned to Stefan.

"Uh, nothing important."

"It wasn't Bonnie, was it?"

She shook her head and Stefan continued surveying the campus as she went back to internally swooning.

On the one hand Klaus had been right with his not-so-subtle hints that she'd been acting different ever since the other night.

Like, could she reasonably be expected _not _to act differently?

She'd practically told the guy that she loved him but he'd stopped her. And while his reason had been understandable, it had still left them stuck on the precipice of somewhere awkward, unable to move forward or back.

Not until they met again in person.

Her mind drifted to the last time they'd spoke.

_"Not over the phone."_

_She smiled to herself, her heart calming as she thought about one day getting to say it to him in person._

_"Ok. Night, Klaus."_

_After his goodnight she ended the call, staring at her phone with a half-smile._

_"I love you."_

_For a second she just smiled dopily, revelling in the novelty of getting to say it aloud. Then with a light self-chastising laugh she shook her head at the fact that she was whispering to herself._

_Caroline placed her phone on her bedside table then settled in to sleep. _

"It's getting late," Stefan observed from beside her, sounding worried.

She nodded, thinking about finding somewhere to settle for the night and the fact that Bonnie was taking _forever _even as the spell kept spreading from Mystic Falls.

Stefan drummed his fingers against the car door and it gave her some more time for her mind to wander off. Of course it went where her mind always seemed to go these days when it had more than a minute off – Klaus.

Because there was also the other hand. The part of her that wasn't awkward and didn't care about the fact that she'd almost proclaimed her love for him over the phone.

There was the part of her that couldn't help acknowledging the unavoidable thrill that came whenever he called her love, even if it was only through texts. The part of her that flushed a deep pink – half embarrassed, half flattered – when he did stupid stuff like call her glare sexy.

_I love it when you glare at me. Very sexy._

Suddenly Caroline became incredibly aware of how ridiculously hard she was trying not to smile and though Stefan wasn't paying her that much attention, she tried diverting her own by thinking about all the scolding she'd be doing when Klaus called tonight.

Except – oh.

The plan was for all of them to get as far out of town as possible to escape the spreading spell. Her, Bonnie and Stefan could be roadtripping all night or indefinitely, for that matter.

Caroline began to wring her hands. No way was she taking Klaus' call in the car with Stefan and Bonnie, but if she resorted to texting again then he was going to be convinced that she was avoiding speaking to him. Not to mention how suspicious her friends would become if she kept furiously texting and blushing.

Caroline had practically chewed through her lip by the time she remembered her roadtrip with Enzo. All she'd had to do was get him to stop for gas and snacks and she'd called Klaus then to give him a heads-up. She could do the same thing with Stefan.

The problem was that they would've had to have made it significantly far before she could reasonably ask them to stop, and with it getting later and later and Bonnie _seriously _taking freaking forever, Caroline was starting to flip out just a little bit.

She turned to Stefan in exasperation. "Where is Bonnie? She was right behind me."

Stefan straightened from where he was leaning against the car. "I'm gonna find out what's taking so long."

He made to walk away but suddenly Tyler approached them. _Well, technically, Julian_.

"I'm looking for Maria. I heard she brought you back to Mystic Falls."

_Crap. _Caroline felt awful. Stefan had told her how the witches had caused Julian's wife's death and she felt terrible because both Travellers had tried to help her friends.

Not knowing what to say, she turned to Stefan who looked like he felt equally as terrible.

"Uh, yeah she did," he confirmed.

"Did she tell you where she was headed? Because she can't stay there, the town's completely overrun."

There was something so straightforward and business-like about Julian that freaked Caroline out considering he was wearing Tyler's body. And the fact that Tyler might be gone forever weirded her out even further.

Both those emotions, however, were trumped by the stifling awkwardness in the air right now.

Stefan looked down and Caroline swallowed, her throat feeling dry. If she could've helped her friend out she would've, but right now she had no more idea about what to say in this situation than Stefan did.

"What's the problem? Did she tell you where she was headed, or what?" Julian pressed, still completely oblivious.

Caroline looked to Stefan again who sighed uncomfortably.

"Listen, uh, you're not gonna see Maria again."

Julian frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Stefan stepped forward with another heavy breath. "She's dead. I'm sorry."

He tried to reach a comforting hand over to Julian but he recoiled.

"_Don't_ touch me."

Feeling she had to step in since the younger Salvatore always did a reprehensible job of defending himself, Caroline finally found her voice again.

"It wasn't Stefan's fault."

Julian didn't seem to care either way. She supposed irrationality was a trait Tyler and his bodysnatcher shared.

"She _saved_ your punk-ass," he hissed, glaring at Stefan.

"I wasn't the one who killed her – the witches did," Stefan explained.

"Well someone's gonna have to pay for it," Julian threatened before shoving Stefan.

"Hey hey hey hey, whoa. I'm in no mood to fight tonight, alright?" Stefan said calmly.

Caroline realised that Julian had lost it. The best thing to do right now would be to remove him from the equation for the moment so they could find Bonnie and get the hell out of here.

Carefully stepping behind Julian, it occurred to Caroline that that plan was a lot like one Klaus may have come up with.

Using only her eyes, Caroline signalled her plan to Stefan and he nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Look at me!" Julian demanded. "My wife's dead. I'm in somebody else's body. I've got nowhere to go because my own people are trying to kill me."

Caroline felt a terrible pit in her stomach. He had a point. Julian hadn't really asked for any of this but now he was stuck right in the middle of it all.

She saw Stefan put on his best negotiating face and its accompanying reasonable voice.

"Listen, we're gonna find a way to stop this spell."

She knew this was her queue; knew that Stefan was talking Julian down as a way to distract him. Caroline took a quiet breath before stepping forward.

Stefan was still talking. "Even if Mystic Falls is gone, we're gonna find a way to save ourselves, right – "

She placed her hands on Julian's neck and was ready to twist and break it when Stefan's words after she'd been unable to kill Tom suddenly popped into her mind –

_Not that you couldn't do it. That you _wouldn't_ do it _–

It distracted her, causing her to hesitate for a split second in uncertainty.

She recovered immediately but it was too late. Julian turned and growled at her, his eyes turning hybrid amber. Caroline gasped, taking a step back.

With a jolt she realised that the only good she could accompany those eyes with was the day Klaus had regarded her with them as he'd appraised her naked body. With Tyler it had always meant fear and death but with Klaus it had been entirely different.

Unfortunately at this particular moment it had the bad kind of shivers running through her body.

Before she could react, Stefan sped up to Julian from behind and grabbed him, speeding him to the car and pinning him there. Caroline hesitated, unsure whether to try and help or not, but after a second it didn't matter.

Stefan lurched backwards and with widened eyes Caroline saw her friend's heart in Julian's hand. She gasped, putting her hands to her face as her own heart sped in panic. She wanted to act or move or do anything but she was rooted to her spot in utter shock.

She tried to convince herself that she wasn't staring at Stefan's heart in the hands of her ex-boyfriend; that Stefan wasn't dead.

But the veins ran up Stefan's neck, his eyes wide, and he dropped to the ground.

Julian sneered at the Salvatore's dead body. "There. Dead doppelganger. _Stopped the spell_."

He tossed Stefan's heart then walked away.

Caroline's knees felt weak. "Oh my god," she whispered. "Oh my god!"

She knew she should try and go after Julian but instead she ran to Stefan's body, lifting his head.

"No, no no no no no," she repeated to herself.

This couldn't be it. Stefan couldn't just die like this because of some idiot Traveller. He didn't deserve this.

But she hadn't stopped it and now there wasn't any denying it – as she stared at his lifeless vein-covered face, she realised that Stefan really was dead.

"Oh my god," she breathed out, dragging her hands through her hair.

She felt something bubbling up in her chest that she hadn't felt in a long time – not since her father and Bonnie. _Why did everyone have to die on her?_

"God, help me! Please!" she screamed, knowing there was no one to hear her pleas.

Knowing there was no one who could help her.

"Oh my god, oh my god! No."

She was on her knees with Stefan's head on her lap and desperately she rocked back and forth.

"Somebody help!" she screamed, beside herself.

She wasn't sure what she was doing anymore, only that she couldn't handle this – not this too. She couldn't lose any more.

"Please," she cried. "Somebody help!"

It was the only thing she could think of to say. She couldn't deal with this alone.

Oh god, she couldn't deal with this at all.

"Please please please," she sobbed, bending over his rigid form, "please help me, please."

She almost jumped out of her skin when against her leg something began vibrating furiously.

It took her a second to realise that it was her phone and another to realise that it was _Klaus._

Her hands shaking as she frantically reached inside her jeans' pocket, she pulled out her phone and noted with relief that it was indeed his name on the Caller ID, before hastily answering the call and putting her phone to her ear.

"Oh god, Klaus, oh _god_."

Klaus stood, on immediate alert.

Caroline sounded genuinely distraught and he couldn't fathom what the matter could be. Just a few hours earlier she had been playful and teasing with him.

"Caroline, what's wrong?"

"_Klaus_," she repeated, nothing more coming through other than unbridled sobbing.

Klaus had heard Caroline scold and tease and chastise and beg for more but never had he heard her crying. It was a raw and broken sound and he loathed it. It ate at his nerves and felt like acid through his veins.

He sat back down, his mind racing for a way to calm her.

"Caroline, love, concentrate on my voice, can you do that?"

Caroline nodded, focusing on calming her breathing, shutting her eyes as she listened to Klaus' calm husky voice laced with that accent she loved so much.

"I need you to calm down and think about something else; anything else."

She nodded again, her thoughts turning from Klaus' voice to the lips it came from and the way they felt against hers.

"Just calm down, love."

Gradually her breathing slowed and she felt completely at ease as behind her lids she watched Klaus give her a genuine heartwarming smile right before speeding her up against that tree.

"Are you alright?"

She nodded. Then, finally realising that Klaus couldn't see her, cleared her throat. "Yeah, yes. I'm fine."

"You're sure?" he asked in concern.

"Yes, I'm completely unharmed," she assured him, her eyes still closed.

"Ok," Klaus nodded, allowing himself to breathe freely again.

Caroline was unharmed. That was the most important thing. Knowing that, he could handle anything else.

"Alright love, what is it that upset you so much?"

Just thinking about it had Caroline's heart speeding up again but she nodded, willing her lips apart.

"It's Stefan."

Klaus frowned. _Stefan?_

"He's dead. Julian killed him."

Klaus' eyes widened and his free hand curled into a fist. "_What_?"

"He's dead, Klaus," she whispered.

"No," he shook his head.

She didn't reply and he ground his teeth against each other. He didn't want to believe it but there didn't seem to be a choice in the matter – Stefan's death was one of the few things that could explain Caroline's current traumatised state.

"Who in the bloody hell is Julian?" he growled.

"The Traveller in Tyler's body," she explained softly.

Klaus wanted to crush something between his very fingers. Naturally that hybrid was _still _getting in his goddamn way. Why he hadn't just killed him the many times he'd had the chance, Klaus would never know.

"Where is he now?" he asked through his clenched jaw.

"Klaus… it won't help to hurt him," she rationalised.

"Oh I intend on doing much more than that, love," he promised darkly.

"It's not gonna bring Stefan back. He's _dead_. He's lying in the middle of the road with his heart on the ground next to him and killing Julian isn't going to help!" Caroline shouted hysterically, her voice having climbed higher and higher as she spoke.

Her eyes flew open and she was hit anew with the view of Stefan's lifeless eyes and rigid body against her; the spidering purple veins everywhere.

"He's dead, oh god, Stefan's dead," she began to cry again.

Caroline's high-pitched voice and ensuing sobbing brought Klaus out of the revenge-filled haze he'd been in.

He dragged his mind away from the loss of one of his best mates – a man he'd once regarded as his brother – to concentrate on the blonde he was in love with. She needed his help. He couldn't be there with her in person but he had to pretend as if he were.

"Caroline, I need you to listen to me."

When she didn't reply through her sobbing, Klaus gritted his teeth. "Caroline!"

His voice snapped her out of it and Caroline sat up straight again, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

"What?"

"Did you say Stefan was lying in the middle of the road?"

"Yes," she nodded, sniffing.

"Ok," he nodded resolutely. "We need to make sure no one sees you two. Where are you?"

"Outside Whitmore."

"Good," he acknowledged. "I know this won't be easy," he winced, "but you're going to have to carry his body inside your dormitory."

"W-what?" she stuttered, eyeing Stefan's body.

"You have to move him, sweetheart," Klaus repeated softly.

There was a bad taste on her tongue and suddenly an image flashed into her mind: Damon carrying Jeremy's lifeless body down the staircase and laying him on Elena's sofa. She'd felt dejected then and she'd known that Stefan, standing beside her, had felt the same.

_Standing beside her._

Now he was lying before her and Caroline wanted to hurl rather than move him, especially in any way that was undignified. But she also knew that Klaus was right. She wasn't sure she'd be able to deal with anyone who may come along and ask questions. Besides, she wasn't sure there was anything more undignified than lying in the middle of a street with your heart in a bloody clump beside you.

"I should call Elena," she realised. "They didn't leave that long ago, they can come back."

Klaus sighed in relief. Caroline sounded more focused and in control.

"Yes. Take his body inside, speak to Elena and then call me right back."

She nodded, absorbing Klaus' instructions as she lowered Stefan's head to the ground and stood. She could do this.

"Ok, I'll do it," she agreed with a heavy exhale. "But Klaus?"

"Yes?" he frowned.

"Don't go anywhere." She sucked in the icy night air. "I need you."

Klaus was stunned into silence for a moment but he recovered and smiled.

"I won't, Caroline."

Taking one last calming breath, Caroline ended the call, re-placed her phone inside her pocket and bent down to pick up Stefan's body.

* * *

Giving Stefan's rigid form on the sofa one last glance, Caroline headed into another room, dialling.

He picked up on the first ring.

"Hey," she said, her voice low.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she smiled tightly. "Just carried my dead best friend's body into my common room. No big deal; just a normal Saturday."

Klaus exhaled heavily. "What exactly is going on in Mystic Falls, Caroline? Why did the Traveller kill Stefan?"

Caroline opened her mouth to explain then realised that she felt exhausted – not a single cell in her body contained the energy to contribute to explaining it all.

"I don't feel like talking about that right now." Her eyes widened. "I should go find Bonnie! She said she might have a plan to bring Enzo back."

"Wait, Caroline," Klaus said hastily. "Are you telling me there may be a way to bring Stefan back to life?"

"Yes!" She frowned. "Maybe. I don't know. She didn't seem very sure."

Suddenly her phone buzzed in her hand.

"Hold on."

She looked at the message, noting that it was from Elena.

**Be there in ten.**

"Elena's almost here," she informed Klaus. "Oh god, how am I gonna explain this?"

"Caroline, I need you to listen to me," he said, his tone turning grave.

Swallowing, she nodded. "Ok, I'm listening."

"You're going to get Stefan back and nothing is going to stop you. Certainly not your friends."

She shook her head in confusion. "Klaus, they'll want him back just as much as we do."

Klaus scoffed. "Your friends are consistently willing to sacrifice whatever pleases them whenever it pleases them. You can't trust them, Caroline, but you're strong and you can do this."

A lump formed in Caroline's throat as she considered Klaus' words. Was he right? Was there anything that could make Damon or Elena not want to bring Stefan back? She was sure that Elena loved Stefan but she was also in her Damon-phase at the moment – maybe Klaus was right, maybe she couldn't be completely sure.

"What are you suggesting, exactly?"

"When Damon and Elena arrive you need to be as upset as you were when you called me."

Considering the quickening of her heart just thinking of Stefan's body on that sofa, Caroline figured that wouldn't be too hard.

"Ok… but why?"

"Because if they believe you to be emotional then they won't suspect how focused you really are."

Caroline bit the inside of her lip. She wasn't sure she wanted to be that duplicitous.

Then again, Klaus wasn't asking her to rob a bank. He was encouraging her to get her friend back. All she had to do to ensure that happened smoothly was to be securely on her own team. And if there was anything she'd learned from living in Mystic Falls, it was that that was the best way to play.

She took a resolute breath. "Ok."

"You do anything it takes, do you hear me, love?"

She nodded, envisioning Stefan's surprised but impressed and infectious smile when he found out that her and Klaus had conspired to get him back. A slow grin took over Caroline's lips.

"I'll call you after I get him back."

* * *

One more chapter left! Any predictions about how this'll end?

P.S. For those who didn't watch the episode, I took the whole 'do anything it takes' thing from the fact that Caroline snaps someone's neck in the finale in order to manipulate a witch into doing the spell that would get Stefan back!


	11. Chapter 11

Aaaaand we've officially reached the last chapter of _Their Nightly Ritual_. I'm not really sure what to say other than y'all are amazing because I really hadn't been expecting the response to this story that I've gotten. I literally only started it on a whim and the feedback I've received has blown my mind. Thanks to all for every Follow, Favourite and Review (especially the latter because y'all know you got me off my ass – or, well, onto my ass I guess – and writing).

As has been the case for every other chapter, I cannot accommodate whatever Klaus was doing in New Orleans in canon at this time because I don't watch TO and deliberately have tried to remain as oblivious as possible because blergh.

I don't plan on watching S6 so considering this story has basically completely taken place within canon, I'm just going to pretend this is how things really went. There's no evidence to prove otherwise ;)

Please drop me a review and if you feel like lynching me after, I'm also over on Tumblr as _mrslackles. _

* * *

**Chapter 11: Home**

_Their last call_

_They talk. _

_Every night, though it hardly started well._

_And how it ends, well, that's up to her._

Bonnie disappeared.

They all stared at each other incredulously before Jeremy ran over looking distraught.

"What the hell just happened to Bonnie?" Tyler voiced what they were all thinking.

Jeremy's face had transformed into a chilling mask of rage and grief. "She lied. Bonnie isn't coming back. There was never any way for her to. She's the anchor; she went down with the Other Side."

Elena shook her head, her face crumbling all over again before she ran back into the tomb, just barely making it inside. Caroline heard her hit the ground.

Everyone else looked at each other in confusion and Caroline was no different. Bonnie had confessed that there was no way to come back but Caroline had assumed that had changed with the new plan.

Having imparted what he knew, Jeremy trudged over to the spot across the way from them where Bonnie had stood before she'd disappeared. They all watched as he sank to his knees and folded in on himself, sobbing loudly.

Caroline felt frozen with heartbreak – she wasn't sure whether to be grieving herself or supporting someone else.

When Jeremy hollered at the sky, tears streaming down his face, Caroline made up her mind. She'd never been particularly close with the younger Gilbert but she could see that he was in real pain and it was ripping at her heart.

She made to step forward and go to him but a hand stopped her.

Looking up, she realised it was Alaric's.

"Have you talked to Stefan?"

Caroline was confused but she nodded mechanically. "Y-yeah."

Alaric sighed. "Good. I was with Elena before… the news. I'm gonna go to Jeremy; think you can go to her?"

It was clear that Alaric thought Stefan had needed the comforting because he'd lost Damon and Jeremy needed it for Bonnie. Caroline was about to ask why Elena needed double duty when she realised: Elena had lost double today.

She didn't ask who was going to come around and comfort her because she'd just lost her best friend again.

She simply nodded. Alaric looked grateful and he turned his attention to the men standing behind her.

"Stefan, think you can organise getting us out of here?"

For a second she thought the request insensitive before she realised that Alaric was right – they couldn't go back to their homes where their vampirism would be stripped from them, and they couldn't stay here in the cemetery either. They had to leave and she wasn't even sure how many cars they had here between themselves.

Stefan nodded in immediate understanding and turned to leave, she didn't know where. To find a map or count the cars; somewhere.

She felt so sad for him. He'd hoped that Lexie would come back but she hadn't and neither had Damon. Stefan was alive again but he was also heartbroken. So much for the infectious smile she'd been waiting for.

Caroline took a step towards the tomb but this time found Tyler blocking her path.

"Hey, Care."

"Tyler," she smiled tightly.

She could clearly hear Elena's wracking sobs and Jeremy's barely contained outbursts and what she really wanted to do was crawl into a corner of her own and cry until there was nothing left. Unfortunately what she had to do was go to Elena, and Tyler preventing her from doing so wasn't exactly sitting well with her.

"I just wanted to say that it's good to be back."

"In your own body," Caroline forced a light laugh.

He smiled a little then took her hand in his. "And I'm sorry about Bonnie, Care."

She nodded, biting her lip a little as she tried her best to keep the tears at bay. He seemed to understand because he changed the topic.

"Listen, I just want you to know that if the best thing ends up being for all of us to split up, I'd like for us to be together."

She stood in silent shock for a few seconds before her eyes widened, trying to work out what he was saying.

That they might split up seemed reasonable enough but by inviting her to go with him was he saying that he wanted them to get back together?

Even before she factored in her own feelings on the subject it was confusing, considering how he'd made it very clear that he was completely done with her after she'd slept with Klaus.

She ended up not saying anything, too surprised to form a reply, but managed a small smile.

The truth was that she had no idea what she wanted to do. The girl who always had a plan was frozen in confusion and grief. All the easy, safe, usual fall-back-onto options were out of the question. She couldn't exactly just go back to college.

This felt like one of those defining moments that life forced on you. Whichever path they all chose tonight was going to change things for good. They would all be settling somewhere new, possibly not even near one another. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.

Besides, she'd really been in love with Tyler, once. If she had to roadtrip and start a new life somewhere else, she honestly could do worse than Tyler for a companion.

He smiled too and ran a hand down her arm, removing his other from her hand.

"I'll see you when you come out," he promised.

She nodded then quickly side-stepped him, walking into the tomb where Elena's sobs had lessened in neither volume nor intensity and Caroline's heart dropped back into her shoes.

Elena had lost Bonnie and Damon.

She'd lost her parents – both sets of them – she'd lost Jenna and now her best friend and her boyfriend. And before they'd come back, she'd lost Alaric and Bonnie and Jeremy and…

With a jolt Caroline realised that that was all any of them did anymore. _Lose people. _Every day was some variation of trauma.

Each day when Klaus had called and asked her about her day, she'd never been able to report a dull one. The one time she had, on her study day, it had only been because she'd been unaware that her friends were being held hostage in a coffee shop.

If they weren't fighting something or getting killed then they were losing friends or mourning people only to have them return. And then die again.

She approached where Elena had curled herself in a corner.

The ball Elena was coiled up into, her head on her knees as she rocked back and forth with high echoing sobs, was the physical representation of what each of them felt – practically what their souls were.

_I hate that you're the only person who makes me happy anymore._

She stepped closer to her best friend and laid a light hand on her back.

"Elena…"

The brunette turned to Caroline with an expression that was both a sneer and the most terrifying grief Caroline had ever witnessed.

"What, Caroline? Are you here to comfort me? Go ahead. What does the great Caroline Forbes have to say that's going to make all of this better?"

It sounded sarcastic but the brunette actually waited for an answer, her eyes desperately searching Caroline's face.

She realised that Elena really was sincerely looking for answers. She wanted anything that would make her feel like her heart hadn't just been ripped out of her chest, but the problem was that Caroline didn't have them. All she had was the answering pain in her own heart – the pain that told her she couldn't take much more of this. Which meant she knew exactly how Elena felt but there was absolutely nothing she could do about any of it.

Mentally Caroline cursed Alaric for sending her in here, even as she realised that he was probably experiencing something similar right now.

"I… I don't have anything," Caroline admitted, her lip beginning to quiver. "It's just… I can't bear seeing you like this, Elena."

Elena barked out a laugh. "I heard you guys talking outside. We need to leave, right? Do you think I _care_ about going anywhere or doing anything when me and my brother just lost the people we're in love with?"

Caroline took a small step back, recognising the rage entering her friend's eyes.

"What am I supposed to tell him, Caroline? You had nothing for me, so what am _I_ supposed to _tell him? _How can I be strong for him when all I want to do is stay here on this floor and think about how _stupid _I was?"

Caroline frowned then shook her head. "Elena, you aren't – "

"Save it, Caroline," Elena growled. Then she took a breath, calming herself. "Look, I get that you're trying to help but you don't understand. For the past _year _all I've done is push Damon away. Can you imagine what it feels like to lose someone after wasting all that time not being with them?"

Caroline silently watched Elena yell at her from her spot on her floor. She felt petrified; she'd never seen Elena quite like this before. It was like she'd finally reached her breaking point.

"And I keep trying but, I can't think of a single reason why I chose not to be with him, I really can't. Nothing bigger than and harder to get through than what I feel _right now_. If I could go back…" Tears started to come from Elena's eyes again and she stared off, trance-like. "If I could go back knowing what I knew now I wouldn't waste a day. Oh god, I wouldn't waste a second."

Suddenly she seemed to pull herself from her trance and looked up at Caroline, seemingly desperate for her friend to understand.

"Caroline, I know you couldn't stand him. But I really did love him." She put her hands up to her head and curled her nails into her scalp. "I _loved _him. And I wasted it."

Caroline felt her throat close up – not in grief but utter fear. On the dirty stone floor grasping her hair and rocking back and forth, Elena looked like a mental patient.

"Elena, please – "

"You can't understand, Care. How it feels to lose something you could've had. And I hope you never have to."

The words were sincere and tears started to stream from her eyes again. She turned back to the wall, laying her face on it as she curled her knees into the nook.

She sounded calmer when she spoke again but her voice was thick with tears. "Look, when we need to go, I will, ok? Just, please, leave me alone."

Caroline hesitated. She really wanted to stay to say something or hug Elena or do anything comforting. It was what she did – she mothered. Except she couldn't think of any comforting words. _It's all going to be ok_? There literally wasn't anything further from the truth. _It seems worse than it is_?

None of it was true. Everybody was always dying around them and that's how it always would be – there was no logical way of denying that. So there was nothing to say or do that could possibly help.

She turned on her heel, about to leave, but stopped short.

"I'm sorry, Elena. And I love you." She sighed heavily. "One day it won't hurt this much."

She waited for a reply but none came and Caroline sighed again before walking out.

Alaric stood just outside the tomb.

"How's Jeremy?" she asked.

Alaric's brow was so furrowed that she needn't have asked. "He's going to need some time. Elena?"

She shrugged. "Same."

Alaric rubbed a finger over his brow with a sigh. "Ok, well we should be leaving soon but I'll go in there in the meantime."

She nodded. Elena had requested to be alone but Caroline couldn't stand thinking about nobody being in there with her best friend right now. Maybe letting Alaric go in was her customised method of mothering at the moment. Desperate times…

"Tyler asked me to tell you that he'd be back soon," Alaric continued. "Stefan needed his help."

Right. Tyler.

Her heart sped as she thought of linking arms with her ex-boyfriend or climbing into a car with him. Only it wasn't pounding with excitement – it was dread. And it wasn't just Tyler but everything he represented. Her old life, her old friends; her old problems – entrapment.

Alaric moved towards the tomb then spun back around, snapping his fingers.

"Oh, Caroline!"

She turned too. "Yeah?"

"I almost forgot. I saw your mother in Mystic Falls when I was on the Other Side. She's fine."

Caroline gasped in relief. "She is? Oh my god, really?"

A small smile crossed Alaric's face. "Really. You don't have to worry about her."

Caroline grinned and it was the first smile her face had formed tonight that was genuine.

"Thanks, Alaric. Really, thank you."

He nodded and began walking away again when on impulse she found herself speaking again.

"Take care of her."

Alaric looked slightly confused but nodded some more as he entered the tomb.

Caroline's heart raced.

She looked around.

Everything was dark and silent. Stefan, Tyler and Jeremy were probably with the cars poring over maps, working out where to stop, where to meet up and where they would all stay. It was the kind of planning she'd usually be helping with.

But now she stood motionless as every bone in her body seemed to pulse.

Again she surveyed the area. To her right was the direction Stefan had gone in. To her left was the forest, where Bonnie had disappeared from.

_Tyler asked me to tell you that he'd be back soon._

_I'd like for us to be together._

Her feet were moving before she'd given them the instruction.

She was running into the woods at full vampire speed, everything blurring around her.

She ran steadily and after a few minutes her face was soaked. She considered rain but the realisation almost tripped her up – it was her own tears.

Abruptly she stopped and looked around. She'd lived in Mystic Falls her entire life and had done a variety of odd things in its surrounding forest. So she was by no means _Magellan _but she did know the forest fairly well. And she hadn't been thinking about her goal destination at all but right now she could tell that her feet had automatically brought her near somewhere special.

She sped through the heavy trees for another minute then slowed and trudged her way through the loud leaves underfoot. She found herself close to blushing at how familiar this piece of forest was to her; how important.

_I do. But I won't – for you._

That day Klaus had affected her so much that in her fluster she'd sped anywhere as long as it had been away from him. Unknowingly she'd ended up at a spot in the forest that hadn't even been part of or near Salvatore property. Something she hadn't realised until she'd made her way back that night.

But now it worked well for her because it meant she could come back without fear of the Travellers' spell harming her.

Caroline walked on ahead, remembering their conversation, then turned right and smiled even as tears streamed over her lips.

_Me._

Her gaze skimmed over the exact spot they'd stood in the first time they'd kissed. When she'd kissed him.

She raised her eyes and looked at the tree not too far away. The one Klaus had sped her up against.

Their tree, in a way.

She walked up to it slowly then placed her palms on the bark. There were patches of it missing. She thumbed over them, her smile widening. She wanted to laugh aloud at how thoroughly abused the tree looked.

Instead Caroline turned and leaned back into the slight curvature in the tree. It moulded almost perfectly to her back, though she was lower than she'd been with her legs wrapped around Klaus' waist.

_Her buttons popped off and dropped, followed by her shirt, and she pulled him closer._

_That's all she wanted him. Closer. _

_Which was a bit of a problem considering undressing required space between their bodies. Space she was refusing to allow. _

_Klaus kept trying to draw back, whether to pull off his shirt or her jeans she couldn't be sure, but she held him to her tightly, desperately claiming his mouth for herself._

_It wasn't that she didn't want the sex – god, did she want it – it was just that she hadn't quite gotten over his lips yet. That plus the feel of his body pressed tightly against her was causing the kind of jolts of electricity that she'd never felt before to thunder through her body. _

_She could feel his smirk against her lips but she didn't even care. _

_He slid his hands down the frame of her body to her jeans and roughly undid them, almost ripping them from her body like he'd done with her shirt. _

_Caroline didn't pay any attention. With a last nip at his bottom lip she finally pulled away from his mouth, directing her heated kisses somewhere she'd been wanting to get at for a _very_ long time – his neck. _

_She placed hot open mouthed kisses down the column of his throat then licked along his collarbone. Klaus growled and pushed himself closer to her. She could feel the bark irritating and poking at her skin but she was too busy revelling in the pure scent of Klaus that she found in the hollow of his shoulder to care._

_Caroline gasped loudly when Klaus began reciprocating the attention she was paying his neck to where her own throat lay exposed._

_Quickly she stepped out of her boots and Klaus' hands were immediately on her, tugging at the back of her thighs to assist her in wrapping her legs around his waist. _

_Caroline leaned back slightly and, as quickly as she could, pulled his Henley up over his head so her descending kisses could continue uninterrupted. Klaus let out a sharp noise of surprise but backed up to allow Caroline's mouth to coast over his chest._

_ He growled when her teeth grated over his ribcage. _

_She could hardly breathe against his skin but what little breath she had was scalding. Her hands dropped down to his sides then behind him, slipping beneath his jeans and boxer briefs. _

_Her nails curled into his butt and with a growl Klaus bucked into her. _

_It was some sort of relief. Grinding against him frenziedly with loud moans, she began nipping at his hard chest as she dug her nails deeper. Klaus panted into her neck._

_When her burning tongue touched his skin, Klaus lost it. In a second she was completely bare and she threw her head back in utter pleasure as Klaus expertly went to work on her chest. _

_"Oh, god!" she cried._

_She yelled it again. And again. _

_Then it all gurgled in her throat when his hands went south._

_Her eyes were clenched tight; her throat lay open to him as her head lolled in mid-air beside the tree. Still, she worked her hands toward him, coasting them over his hard body before going downward. Desperately she worked at his fly and by some kind of miracle it came undone. _

_She toed off his jeans but had no patience with his underwear; she heard the rip as she blindly tore the boxer briefs from his body. _

_Klaus lifted his mouth from her breast to her ear and she was finally able to open her eyes again, releasing a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. _

_"Caroline."_

_Half a whisper; half a growl. _

_She parted her lips to reply – with no idea what to say but his name, his name, _burning _on her tongue – but he was halfway down her chest already. In seconds his lips were at her stomach and moving still downwards. He was removing his hands from their torturous spot when she realised what he was doing and shook her head – she needed _him.

_Latching hold of his hair, she yanked violently and his head shot up with a grunt, his eyes confused. She rolled her hips against him pointedly, showing what she wanted. _

_All the words she usually had – the scathing and acidic ones she stored up specifically for him along with all else in her vocabulary – were caught in her throat, rendered meaningless by the fiery need she felt._

_Klaus' electric eyes met hers – _You're sure?

_If she were having an out of body experience she probably would've giggled. They were both butt-naked up against a tree in the middle of the woods, practically devouring each other, and the thousand year old Original Hybrid felt the need to confirm that she did actually want to go all the way with him. _

_But in reality there was nothing humorous about the situation because she was firmly situated inside her own body – a body that was supposed to be dead and cold but instead was alive and burning; aching. A body wrapped around another body that she wanted more than she'd ever wanted anything._

_She didn't reply to his wordless question. Instead she took a shaky breath then put her lips to his gently, tenderly kissing first his top lip then his bottom. _

_Wantonly she slid her tongue over the crease between them._

_He took her by surprise. A high screech escaped her throat as he joined them unequivocally. Her head hit the tree and through widened eyes she saw stars dot across her vision. Klaus pulled back and she whimpered the loss. _

_Wasting no time, he drove back into her forcefully and Caroline panted moans, most of which were his name over and over. _

_Frantically she grasped at him, at anything, and her hands found one of his necklaces. She tugged at it desperately and, as Klaus sped against her, she heard the beads rip away from each other and clatter to the leaves below. _

Caroline's back coasted over the bump in the tree as she slid down to the ground, the tears coming freely now, wracking her body with sobs. She laid her head on her knees and cried. She cried for Bonnie, she cried for her dad, she cried for when she'd almost lost her mother; she cried for what her life had become.

She cried for what she'd given up – what she could've had instead.

A long time passed but her body never stopped shaking as she made sobbing sounds even with her eyes completely dried out. Her mind wandered to what she'd thought about Julian yesterday, about how he hadn't chosen to be a part of all this. Thing was – neither had she. She really did love being a vampire but even that had been forced on her.

She reached into her pocket. At first her hands shook so much that she couldn't grasp it but after a few tries she managed to extract her phone.

He answered almost immediately.

"I was beginning to get worried."

She could hear that he was smiling and her body trembled as she remembered her promise – that the next time she called him it would be after she'd brought Stefan back.

"Stefan's fine."

All it took was her voice – raw and cold; empty.

"What happened?" he asked, fear creeping into his tone; the smile undoubtedly gone.

"The Other Side collapsed," she admitted, biting her lip. "Along with Bonnie and Damon."

There was silence for a moment before she heard a loud crash and Klaus cursing.

She focused on a spot on the ground, trying to keep her breathing under control.

This was it; the end of the resurrections and cheating death. She really was never going to see Bonnie again.

"Caroline, I'm sorry," he eventually breathed.

She nodded, trying to restrain herself from bursting out into a new round of dry sobbing.

"Are you alright?"

She considered. There was only one answer to that and besides, they'd passed the point of lying to each other a long time ago.

"No," she squeaked, biting deeply into her lip.

Klaus' fist clenched as he stood over the remnants of the wardrobe he'd overturned. He felt helpless, a sensation he despised. His witches had warned him of the tentative nature of the Veil but even he had been unable to prevent the pull of the universe.

Nature and its goddamn balance always trying to screw him over. He hated it and, in addition to his mother, it was the reason he detested witches.

The problem was that this one in particular had been _her_ best friend.

"I'm sorry, love."

He couldn't think of anything else to say.

Caroline leaned her head back against the tree.

"_Nobody's_ ok. Everybody's lost someone." She shook her head, wishing that she had the ability to keep denying it. "All we _do_ is lose people."

"Stefan didn't take it well?"

"No, he lost his brother. And Elena – god, she's a mess." She hugged her knees closer. "All of it – it's made me think, though."

"About what?" he asked, his voice muted.

"Wasting time."

He didn't reply and Caroline's thoughts wandered to the gang, who would be leaving any minute now. They would come looking for her, she knew. Stefan and Tyler would probably comb the area surrounding the cemetery and lodge calls every few minutes. She didn't want them to worry or think that some new supernatural nemesis had snatched her; she would text Stefan once she got off the phone with Klaus.

But she wouldn't be going with them. She couldn't. She'd rather spend the next hundred years alone than have to deal with any more of the horror that seemed to follow them all around.

She needed to stay on her own team, if only for just a while. Till she got her sanity back.

"I'm in the forest," she informed him. She smiled a little. "By our tree."

Klaus allowed a small laugh to escape. "Are you? Why?"

"Everyone's leaving. The Travellers' spell means that we can't go back to Mystic Falls or our vampirism will be stripped from us and we'll die."

"I see," Klaus acknowledged. "But you aren't going with them?"

"No."

"Caroline – "

"I've been thinking," she interrupted him, "about what I said to you that day."

Klaus frowned. There was no need for her to clarify which day she was talking about but Caroline had said plenty that day.

"I do want normal," she confirmed.

Klaus' frown only deepened. He had no idea what she was attempting to tell him or why.

Those words still rang in his ears, even sometimes overshadowing her more recent proclamations.

_I have plans and a future and things that I want and none of those things involve you, OK, none of them!_

"I was just wrong about the how," Caroline admitted.

She heard Klaus' breath catch but she continued.

"Normal isn't college or boyfriend drama – not the kind of normal I care about anymore. Normal isn't having your friend die because the parasite in your ex-boyfriend's brain ripped his heart out. Normal isn't mistaking your friends being back together again for them keeping a secret about having killed someone. _Normal_ is being able to go to sleep without having nightmares about what's going to try and kill you the next day. God, I can't take any more of it!"

Klaus was silent for a while but sounded breathless when he eventually spoke.

"You deserve everything you want, Caroline."

Klaus' nails bit into the flesh of his palm, trying to distract himself from the visceral burning he felt to be there with her. To do anything in his power that had the possibility of making her feel even marginally better.

"I want _you._"

It had come out as a whisper but she couldn't be surer of her decision.

_Can you imagine what it feels like to lose someone after wasting all that time not being with them?_

"Now," she clarified.

She hadn't chosen to be a part of any of this. Her entire life for the past two and a half years had been the consequences of others' decisions.

But now she was choosing.

"Screw the promise, Klaus. I want to be with you."

She smiled when she heard a displacement of air over the phone that usually signified vampire speed.

She also heard the beeps that indicated a second incoming call and knew that her friends' hunt for the blonde had begun. But they wouldn't think to look for her here and even if they did, she wouldn't be going anywhere with them. Her mother was ok and her friends would learn to deal without her.

She wasn't wasting any more time.

"Caroline?" Klaus said gruffly.

"Klaus?"

_She'd chosen him_.

"Don't move, sweetheart."

Klaus stepped aboard his jet, smiling.

"I'm coming."


	12. Chapter 12

Hey, guys! First of all, I'm sorry if you're reading this for like the fourth time or something, I don't have much time these days so I was forced to create a blanket announcement. Secondly, if this is a completed story, I'm sorry for giving you false hope about another chapter! Thirdly: I DESIGNED A KLAROLINE SHIRT! It's up on Teespring and it would really mean a lot to me if you guys would take a look to see if you're interested. Long story short, it's my birthday soon (on the 21st) and also my laptop is in the hospice stage of its life and so I'd really like to be able to gather the funds to contribute to buying myself a new one. If you could help me with that, it would mean the world to me. You can check it out on my tumblr (it's the most recent post), which is mrslackles (so mrslackles dot tumblr dot com) or search for it on Teespring (it's the only Klaroline item, can y'all believe that?!). And if you can't buy, maybe a reblog?

Thank you and sorry for any disappointment caused!


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